Blinding
by oliviilskov
Summary: Danny was just 14 when his life was changed forever. He might have been trying to impress Sam just a bit when he walked into that portal... Novelization of show with a deeper perspective into the characters.
1. Chapter 1

A bright white flash temporarily blinded Danny as he was standing in front of his parents' eerie invention they called "the Ghost Portal". He quickly blinked the dark spots away and proceeded to glare at his best friend, Sam, saying,

"OK, you took your picture, can we please get out of here? My parents could come back any minute now."

Danny slightly winced when he heard his voice crack; Sam, however, took no notice to the embarrassing squeak as she walked up next to him to continue staring at the empty portal.

"Aren't you at least a bit curious? I mean, it's a portal to another realm! You have to check it out, Danny!"

If Danny was his older sister, Jazz, he could have pointed out the flaws in Sam's argument. But Danny was not Jazz: he was a 14-year-old American teenager just starting his days in high school (that might have a tiny crush on his female best friend). His mind churned over Sam's logic. True, his parents always told Danny to be careful in the lab (well, mostly his mother), and the portal was broken anyway. He had a HAZMAT suit, it would be easy to slip into one for protection from any radiation that might be in the portal. Besides, if it did work, the worst that could happen was Danny sticking his head through the portal and seeing a whole different world! The astronaut within Danny (he had always wanted to explore space, this was just a type of man-made wormhole, right?) screamed, "DO IT DO IT DOITDOITDOIT!" That, and the fact that Sam was there…

"You know what? You're right! Who knows what kind of awesome things could be behind that portal!" Danny quickly stepped into the HAZMAT and zipped the one-piece up to his neck.

"Hang on…"

Danny turned to look at Sam, who stepped up to him and touched his chest…

"You can't go walking around with THAT on your chest!" She had ripped a sticker of his dad's face off the front of the suit and pointed at the offending piece of material in her hand with her other hand. Danny sheepishly smiled at Sam (and Tucker, who was snickering 'lovebirds' right behind her), a little embarrassed, then turned to the portal once again. Stepping into the invention carefully, Danny looked around, hoping for a sign of some sort of unearthly… thing. How did this portal work again?

It was at that moment that Danny's unfortunate clumsiness decided to act up. Tripping on his own foot, of all things! Thankfully, his hand met the wall, which kept Danny from falling to the ground.

A low whirring came from the wall and Danny's eyes widened. The portal was supposed to not work! AT ALL! What was happening?

An otherworldly acid green glow slowly slid from the left side of the portal, to the top, to the right, and finally the bottom. The whirring went from a low rumble to an almighty roar, when Danny's vision went from green and black to pure white, the same way Sam's camera temporarily blinded Danny. Instead of only lasting less than a second, it seemed to last for an eternity.

Then Danny felt a prickling across his skin. The prickling lasted for a second, only because it went from a prickling to a full out _frying_. Danny couldn't think, he only knew the pure agony coming up from his arms and legs. He was frozen; he couldn't move, even if he tried.

Was he screaming? The pain suddenly lapsed enough for Danny to hear something, but it seemed so far away. His hands quickly shot up to his scalp and gripped the roots of his hair in an attempt to block the migraine in his head. Was it a migraine? When had he fallen to his knees?

Then the true pain began. The bright light and the pain that followed that light was nothing compared to this… torture.

Danny could feel every cell of his body rip apart, no, torn to pieces! His eyes were burning, melting, combusting? He couldn't feel his eyes anymore. His bones withered, his heart imploded, the muscles in his body were stretching like rubber. The last thing Danny could remember was thinking, 'Shouldn't I be dead already?' 

When Sam saw the blinding light, she couldn't move. When Danny started screaming, she began to weep and fell to her knees. Tucker screamed for help, but it was no use. Even if there was somebody else in the house, the Fentons had soundproofed the basement-lab because their neighbors had complained about the couple making loud noises into the dead of night while inventing. The Fentons, of course, resisted their neighbors demands until the police were brought in and they were forced by law to soundproof the walls of their lab.

No one heard Danny's agonized scream, Tucker's frantic shouts for help, or Sam's guilty weeping.

What literally happened in a few seconds felt like hours for the two teens. Finally, a poison green slowly replaced the bright white light, turning in a slow, counter-clockwise spiral. Sam and Tucker's tears slid freely when they realized that Danny had stopped screaming.

"No… No… Please, dear God, please no…" Sam whispered. Tucker could only stare at the portal where he had last seen his best friend. It was as if time had frozen, but Sam and Tucker were not. They could only helplessly stare at the portal where their best friend had once been.

Suddenly, the portal seemed to collapse inwards, as if it was about to implode. Sam and Tucker scrambled away, eyes never leaving the portal, when a black figure was thrown from the portal, almost as if it had been sneezed out. Once the figure flew out of the green spirals, the portal went back to its slow churning.

Sam and Tucker's eyes were fixed on the figure that had been so unceremoniously tossed away from the portal. It was humanoid, with icy white hair and was wearing a black skintight suit that seemed oddly familiar. The figure had landed on its stomach, so the two teens could only see the suit and the hair, which covered up whatever part of the face was exposed to the air.

The two fourteen-year-olds had no clue what to do. This… whatever this was, it had just been tossed out of what their best friend's parents called "Ghost Portal". This creature… person… had to be a ghost! Right?

Sam eventually stepped to the ghost's side and poked it. Well, _tried_ to poke it. Where the being's shoulder should have stopped her finger, it had simply passed through and disappeared _into_ the shoulder. Sam gasped and brought her hand back as if she'd been burned. Tucker had seen Sam's finger go into the thing's shoulder, too, and whispered, "Ghost!" Both of their eyes were wide open at the creature that lay before them.

Sam shrieked when the being in front of her groaned. Tucker had noticed that the creature wasn't breathing, so it was definitely dead, but also shouldn't have been able to make sounds without something to travel through its windpipe. Unless the creature's anatomy was different than humans.

'Duh, of course it's different!' Tucker mentally berated himself. 'It's a _ghost_!'

Sam, however, noticed something else when the thing had groaned. It sounded so much like _Danny_ … except for that weird echoing noise that happened along with the groan, but it was still like Danny.

She gasped and quickly tried touching it again. This time, her hand was able to touch the being, so she wasted no time in trying to turn the body over. Tucker, realizing what she was doing, quickly knelt next to her and helped shove the being on to his back. Recognizing the face, both of their eyes widened even more to see that the ghost was Danny. There was no denying it. The facial structure and body type were the same, but everything else was so _different_. Even the suit had changed.

The colors had inverted themselves, but Danny's entire body had a sort of unnatural glow to it. The skin that they could see was tanned, and somehow, Sam knew that Danny's eyes were no longer blue, even though she couldn't see them. They glowed underneath his eyelid, and whatever that color was, it was _not_ the beautiful bright sky blue they were before. His hair was so white, it was almost impossible to look at for too long. It was _blinding_.

"Danny?" Sam tried to shake Danny, but her hand passed through him again. It was then that she truly realized what had happened. "Danny…" tears sprung into the girl's eyes once again when the hard truth hit her.

Tucker was staring at Danny's chest, almost trying to will it to rise and fall, but when Sam's hand passed through Danny again, he couldn't help it. He started weeping at the fact that his best friend for over a decade was lying in front of him as a ghost.

The two friends reached for and clung to each other in a heart-shattering hug, both trying to find comfort in the other, when Danny groaned again and scrunched his eyes. The two teens with quickening heartbeats quietly gasped, but didn't know what to do. They both wanted to help Danny, but Danny was a _ghost_ , and might hurt them. Finally, Danny's eyelids shot open and revealed glowing, toxic green eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Danny felt when he woke up was something tickling him. On his shoulder. It quickly stopped. His hearing came back a few moments later, and to Danny's confusion, it sounded like somebody was crying. That didn't make sense, though, because the last thing Danny remembered was walking into the lab with Sam and Tucker… and the person crying was _definitely_ not Tucker. Well, maybe it was, Danny just realized that there were two people crying, and one of them was Tucker, but the other person was more than just crying, they were _sobbing_! And it couldn't be Sam, because _Sam_ didn't _cry_ … wait…

Danny's face scrunched up as he listened and realized that it _was_ Sam. Why was she crying? What had happened?

The memories came back all at once: Sam's insistence on taking pictures, getting into the HAZMAT suit, walking into the portal… the _worst_ possible pain _ever_ imaginable…

Danny's eyes shot open and he quickly sat up, only to immediately grip his head and groan. Looking around, Danny realized that he was laying on the floor in the middle of the lab, with Sam and Tucker holding each other a little way to his left. Their eyes were wide with… was that _fear_? What were they afraid of?

"Sa-am? Tu-tucker?" he croaked. His throat was very sore. 'Screaming your voice hoarse will do that to you' Danny thought a bit bitterly. Sam and Tucker stiffened and remained where they were, until Sam started to slowly creep towards him.

"Danny?" she asked, almost trembling. Danny would have been shocked at hearing the fearful tone in her voice if he wasn't busy trying to clear his throat. Tucker crawled towards Danny's other side, keeping a careful watch for any signs of hostility. Danny didn't notice any of this.

Danny groaned in pain as he tried to stretch his arms.

"I feel like I was ripped apart and then put together again. What happened? I remember walking into the portal, and then…" Danny trailed off when he saw the pained look in both Sam and Tucker's eyes.

"Danny…" Tucker started, then cleared his throat when his voice squeaked. "You might want to find a mirror…"

"A mirror? Why?" Danny's eyes widened at the possibility of scars. The white light and prickling feeling at the beginning… he must have been electrocuted! Danny quickly looked down to see if the HAZMAT suit was still there or not… and saw the glow coming from his body.

'Is this radiation?' Danny thought worryingly. If it was, then Sam and Tucker could be in danger from being near him… and he would probably die a slow and painful death from cancer…

Sam offered her hand to him, which Danny decided would be best not to touch if he _was_ radioactive. He shook his head slightly, then moved to stand up on his own. Sam tried not to look dejected, but she couldn't help but think, 'He must be blaming me… and I don't blame him for never wanting to see me again…'

Sam almost choked at that thought, but managed to keep it down. She glanced at Tucker, who looked back with sad eyes, before scrambling up from the floor to follow Danny. Tucker grabbed her wrist, however, and silently shook his head at her before glancing back to Danny with a knowing look.

Danny was slowly walking towards the sink and mirror in the corner of the lab when he caught his first glimpse of his reflection.

'What?' was all he could think before fully sprinting at the mirror, trying not to believe what he was seeing as he placed his palms against the glass.

"This… this isn't me!" he managed to croak out. Danny watched his reflection move with him as he ran his hand through his hair, then turned back to his best friends. "Tell me this isn't real!" His eyes were wide with fear. What had _happened_?

Tucker stepped towards Danny and said, "Dude, we heard you screaming… and then you just stopped. Then the portal spat you out like this. Danny…" Tucker's eyes were wet again, "you haven't taken a single breath since coming out of the portal."

Danny's eyes widened even further as he finally (and manually) took his first breath since coming out of the portal. His fingers frantically found where his vein should have been in his wrist and felt… nothing. He tried again with his neck, with the same result.

" _No_ …" Danny whispered. There was no way, no _way_! Danny's parents had taught him everything they knew about ghosts so far, and he was NOT a ghost!

He hesitantly turned back to the mirror and simply stared at his glowing eyes. He was _not_ a ghost, he couldn't be a _ghost_!

A bright white light sprung around Danny's waist and split in opposite directions, one going up, the other down. Sam and Tucker blinked at the light, then blinked again when Danny, _their_ Danny, stood in front of them, black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin in baggy jeans and t-shirt, in full Danny-glory.

"Danny!" Sam cried in relief.

"Dude, you're back!" Tucker exclaimed excitedly, before adding a quick, "I think…"

Danny placed his fingers along the vein in his neck and almost jumped when he felt a beat, then another, and another. His eyes widened again and he gasped in relief. He had a heartbeat. He _wasn't_ dead, he _wasn't_ a ghost!

Sam couldn't take it any longer and quickly engulfed Danny in a bear-hug. Tucker joined in immediately, and the three spent the next few minutes hugging out their relief at Danny's survival.

"Well," Danny said as he broke the hug, "that was a close one. It would be awful if puberty were to _haunt_ me for eternity."

Danny yelped as Sam punched him for the really bad pun. Tucker face-palmed before commenting,

"Dude, that was waaayyy too soon."

The three friends decided that was a good time as any to leave the lab and go finish homework. None of them noticed Danny's toxic green eyes in the reflection of the mirror.


	3. Chapter 3

Everything was fine until Danny literally fell through his bed when he sat on it. Sam and Tucker freaked until they heard Danny's voice coming from downstairs yelling that he was alright. Tucker nearly had a heart attack when Jazz stormed into Danny's room demanding they keep the "racket" they were making down so she could focus on studying "the psychological effects of strict instructors on teenage scholars" or something like that. Danny had walked in around the half-way point of her rant and immediately disappeared. Into _thin air._ Jazz would have noticed Sam's change in demeanor if she wasn't busy passionately explaining her discoveries on students who felt like they were being "victimized" by their peers and teachers.

When Jazz finally noticed Sam and Tucker's grim smiles, she apologized for rambling, reminded them to keep it down, and stalked out of the room, never noticing Danny's presence.

But that was because Danny was invisible. He didn't realize this, of course, and was holding his breath waiting for Jazz to start blaming him for the "racket" or to start psychoanalyzing him (again). When it didn't happen and Jazz had shut her door down the hall, he let go of his breath and reappeared in the visible spectrum.

Tucker had his second near-heart attack when Danny became visible.

"Dude!" He hissed. "When did you _get_ here?"

"And what happened?" Sam asked. "You stepped in and literally vanished!"

"What?" Danny was confused. All he had done was hold his breath… and hope that Jazz didn't see him…

"Danny? Danny, where are you?" Sam was confused now and looking around the room. Tucker, not having seen Danny disappear (as Jazz was in the way) jumped when Danny disappeared again.

"I'm right here, guys," Danny said. His voice had a strange echo, as if he was surrounding Sam and Tucker instead of standing by the door, which was where Sam and Tucker had last seen him.

"Well, we can't see you…" Sam almost stuttered. _Almost_.

Danny walked up to Sam and waved his hand in front of her eyes. He noticed there was a sort of outline of where his hand was supposed to be and jumped, which also brought him back to visibility. Sam shrieked and leapt away from Danny onto the bed that was in the middle of the room, elegantly rolled back and landed on her feet on the other side of the bed.

Danny didn't notice any of this because he was staring at his hand that had been waving in front of Sam's face just moments before.

Tucker decided to confront the elephant in the room.

"So, you fell through the floor and turned invisible. What else can you do now?"

"Tucker, stop taking this as if Danny's now got superpowers or something. He's probably still being affected by the ectoplasmic radiation from the portal or something…"

Danny was in his own world because he realized that he had shown all three main signs that something was a ghost (according to his parents, at least): Invisibility, Intangibility, and Flight. What Sam and Tucker didn't know, was that, right before hitting the ground on the floor below, Danny had floated for a full _three seconds_ before impacting with the ground.

'I… I _am_ a ghost…' Danny thought right when Sam had said "ectoplasmic radiation".

To Sam and Tucker's horror, the bright white light from before emerged around Danny and _Danny_ was gone. In his place was the being that had emerged from the portal, Danny's phantom.

All three freshmen were speechless.

"Well…" Danny started. His voice echoed eerily around the room. "I don't think we'll be getting much homework done."

"Danny…" Sam whispered. Danny's bright green eyes met Sam's lilac irises, and Sam couldn't help but _shudder_ at the intense emotion they showed. Danny noticed Sam's reaction and looked to Tucker, who simply shrugged. Tucker's shiver didn't go unnoticed by Danny either.

"Guys…" Danny choked. "I'm still _me._ I'm not going to attack you or anything."

"But your parents say that ghosts…" Tucker started.

"I'm not some mindless ghost," Danny interrupted. "I still remember everything, you're both still my best friends. Even if I am a ghost, I'll be the most human ghost there ever was. I _promise_!"

At that declaration, the light erupted around Danny's phantom and human Danny was back again. Sam heaved a sigh of relief and collapsed onto Danny's bed.

After a few minutes of silence, Tucker faced the elephant in the room again.

"Seriously dude, you're going to have to learn how to control that. It is really freaky when you do it, I am _telling_ you."

"Not to mention the invisibility and intangibility. I think my mom might just _die_ of _shock_ if I randomly disappeared on her," Danny added with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Both Sam and Tucker groaned.

"Dude, you have _got_ to _stop_."


	4. Chapter 4

The three teens were about half-way done with their math assignment when Sam suddenly asked,

"Hey Danny, why aren't your parents back yet? You said… earlier today that they could be back at any time, but they've been gone for hours. Where did they even go?"

"Simple," Danny explained. "Whenever one of Mom or Dad's inventions aren't working the way they want it to, they both go fudge shopping together until one of them gets some sort of inspiration to make the invention work."

With that, Danny went back to the algebraic problem that was giving him a major migraine. Sam and Tucker looked a little confused at first, but then understand what Danny had actually said and also went back to their respective problems.

Tucker suddenly gasped.

"Dude, what are you going to tell your parents?"

Sam's eyes widened as her head whipped around to look at Danny. The three were laying on the floor in front of Danny's bed with textbooks and notebooks strewn about them, with Danny facing the wall to the right of the door, Sam laying on her stomach to his left beside the bed, but facing the corner to the right of the door. Tucker was facing them and sitting crisscrossed, with a textbook lying open in front of him and a notebook on his lap, the eraser of the pencil in his right hand pointed at Danny in a questioning manner.

Danny frowned, showing the thought hadn't actually occurred to him.

"I don't know," Danny chewed a bit on his bottom lip. "What do you suggest?"

"I think you should tell them."

"Don't tell them."

Sam and Tucker glared at one another as they found another thing to disagree and argue over.

"Bro, your parents are scientists. They could find out what happened and how to take care of it," Tucker argued.

"But his parents are also _ghost hunters_. What if they overreact or something and try to experiment on him? And we're treating this as if it's permanent! What if it isn't? What if whatever's happening is just a temporary side effect? What if whatever Mr. and Mrs. Fenton do to Danny ends up hurting him even _more_?" Sam argued back.

"Well, you might be right about the ghost hunter thing. They might overreact a little-" Tucker said before he was interrupted by Sam.

"Have you heard what they think ghosts are? Allow me to quote Mrs. Fenton," Sam cleared her throat. "'Ghosts are nothing more than the remnants of a deceased sub-consciousness personified in a putrid pile of ectoplasm. They should be studied and, after many experiments, effectively eradicated, seeing as ghosts are not capable of anything other than revenge or destruction due to their malicious nature.' Yeah, Tucker, let's tell Mrs. Fenton that her son's part-ghost. Great idea you got there," Sam drawled sarcastically.

"Uhh, Sam, you got the first part right, but I've _never_ heard my mom say the second part," Danny clarified. "But you're right, my parents might overreact a bit. And we don't know if this is even permanent or not. If I'm still showing… ghostly powers by the end of next week, I'll ask Mom and Dad for help. If not, they'll never need to know it ever happened," Danny decided firmly. Both friends decided that Danny's decision was a sound one and went back to their homework.

Later that evening, long since both Tucker and Sam left for their own homes, Danny's parents came back to Fentonworks around 9 PM in a very depressed state (and Jack's girth was considerably larger than it had been before, which Danny didn't even know was possible). Apparently, neither of the scientists could come up with a reason why the portal didn't work.

Danny kept to his decision and acted surprised when his parents suddenly came bounding back up the stairs and joyfully announced to the whole house (and practically the entire neighborhood due to Jack's distinct, booming voice) that the portal's activation had apparently simply been delayed and that it was functioning perfectly.

Jazz was conflicted with how she felt at that situation: she hated seeing her parents so disappointed before and was now very happy at their joy in their success. The _problem_ lied in the fact that her parents _still_ had not given up on the crazy notion that ghosts were real and therefore were still wasting their time and talents researching something that she believed would never be worth anything in the _real_ scientific community. Her parents had invented plenty of top-notch weapons and futuristic forms of technology that would be able to serve the community and military in a much more beneficial way than if they were simply keeping and using it for _ghost hunting._

Danny was not used to deceiving his family. Heck, it's almost impossible to keep _anything_ from Jazz! Every time she analyzed him, she would predict something would happen to Danny's psyche or whatever it was and thereby predict his future actions and reactions, even with Danny trying to prevent them from happening (they happened anyway) just to prove Jazz wrong.

Jazz was _never_ wrong.

Maddie was Danny's mother, and Danny grew up as a Momma's Boy. Nothing else needs to be said.

Jack was… Jack. His boisterous attitude and "the glass is half-full" perspective on life somehow gave the man wisdom that most elders would _kill_ for. Even if Danny somehow managed to keep _something_ hidden from his dad, his dad would simply shout out a pearl of wisdom and Danny would end up spilling his secrets out to his father. His very loving father who forgave everyone of anything and always seemed to be happy.

As mentioned previously, Danny was not used to deceiving his family. Luck, however, was on his side, seeing as his parents were too excited to notice if anything was wrong with their son and Jazz was too busy… psychoanalyzing herself. And their parents.

Danny knew this because Jazz had her "psycho-glare" on. When Jazz was in this mode, nothing could catch her attention. Danny guessed that her mind had transported itself to wherever it went when Jazz was reading (which Danny had dubbed "6th zone" because Jazz read as if it was her "6th sense"… maybe he needed to rename it, it was one of his first puns, and Danny was well-aware that his first puns were… awful) and all of her surroundings (Danny guessed) seemed to melt away and there was nothing but Jazz and the poor soul who was being analyzed.

So Danny was free to shake and tremble when he saw the ghost portal.

He hadn't really noticed it earlier (because he was a bit busy hyperventilating manually), so seeing it _swirl_ gave him the creeps… but also a sort of comfort. He really didn't want to know why.

It was when he realized that the comfort was coming from deeper within him that he decided that he would shut it away and ignore the fact that the… accident had happened. As long as he learned how to not do the _ghost stuff_ , Danny could move on and live as if nothing had ever happened.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N I have to give an author's note for this chapter because it extensively quotes a very famous classic. I do not own that classic, if I did, I'd be dead. Long gone. I do not own Danny Phantom either. Just in case people thought I did.**

 **Thank you for following/favoriting this story! And thank you so much for reviewing! They give me happy feelings and encouragement, so here you have a longer chapter. But it's only longer because of the extensive quoting. Sorry. I hope you enjoy!**

 **P.S. if you find any grammatical errors or if there are any parts of the story that sound awkward or weird, please tell me and I'll fix it. :)**

* * *

Unfortunately, it was a school day the next day.

Danny didn't know how to feel about that. He was very nervous (almost as nervous as the first day of high school, which happened to be two weeks earlier) but he really didn't want to stay home because of the invention that was currently churning two floors below (and his very excited parents). He couldn't really skip school without Jazz finding out, so that was a no go if he didn't want Jazz on his back, but he didn't want to pretend to be sick, because that would mean his mom would be keeping a very close eye on him (and smothering him with blankets and forcing broth tainted with ectoplasm down his throat) and he didn't want to accidentally disappear in front of his parents, so that left him with the option of going to class and hoping that nothing happened, or if something _did_ happen, nobody would see or notice.

Danny chose to go to class. Not because he wanted to go to class, but because he realized that going to school would be the only way to ensure that his parents (and Jazz) wouldn't suspect that Danny skipping class or pretending to be sick was somehow connected to the portal.

It might have been fortunate that Danny was already a naturally clumsy person. He'd already tripped up the stairs several times before the accident had happened, so tripping on the stairs didn't really catch anyone's attention. Nobody was specifically watching out for odd behavior coming from Danny, they merely shrugged and figured he was having a bad day. Despite Danny being the bottom of the social ladder, the other students knew what it was like to be on a bad day and simply ignored it. Dash, however, took his clumsiness as an excuse to "knock the annoying clumsy gene" out of Danny via your typical bullying: punch in the gut, wedgie, pantsing, and a good old-fashioned stuff-'im-in-a-random-locker. With a pinch of name-calling.

Danny sighed and silently wished that someone would come and find him. Fortunately, it was Sam and Tucker. Unfortunately, it was only after he fell _through_ the locker door and right in front of their feet. Danny was extremely lucky that the bell had already rung and that the only people in the hallway were him and his friends.

The three looked a little awkwardly at each other, especially Danny, as he was on the floor with his cheek stuck on some freshly-chewed gum.

"Ewwww!" Danny yelped as he realized that he had someone's saliva (and where people had stepped) on his face. He leapt up from the floor and clawed at his face in an effort to remove the disgusting filth from him.

Sam and Tucker tried not to chuckle at Danny's misfortune, but it was completely futile. The gum refused to leave Danny's face.

When Danny had finally removed the last bit of pink nastiness from his face, he turned and scowled at his friends for laughing at his hard luck. The two coughed, and Tucker asked,

"How was last night with your parents?"

Danny shivered when he remembered the portal and the strange comfort it seemed to give him.

"I still don't have much control over the invisibility and intangibility. I played around with the… weird light that turns me into a ghost, and I think that when I believe that I'm a ghost, I become one, and then when I refuse to believe I'm a ghost, I return to being human." Danny shrugged.

"You're going to have to be careful, then," Sam whispered.

Danny snorted.

"I _have_ been careful, and I still tripped up the stairs seven times this morning."

"Ouch, dude, that's harsh," Tucker commented.

They had been walking to the closest men's bathroom so Danny could wash his face, even though classes had started 10 minutes earlier. Danny and Tucker walked in while Sam kept watch at the door, keeping it cracked open so she could participate in the conversation.

Danny walked to the nearest sink and turned both handles on full blast. When he cupped his hands underneath the tap, the water simply fell through as though his hands weren't even there. Danny groaned in irritation before ripping a few paper towels from the dispenser on his left and placed them under the running water. But the towels didn't get wet, either. The water simply passed through them as well.

Tucker glanced at Danny before grabbing a couple of paper towels and putting them under the water, where they were quickly soaked. He wrung them out and handed them to Danny, who took the towels with a quick 'thanks', then proceeding to curse "darn it!" when they fell through his hand and on to the tile floor.

Danny slowly clenched his hands into fists and started to breathe a little heavily.

Sam peeked her head in.

"How long does it take to clean your face?"

"We're having some… ghost problems," Tucker answered.

"Oh, for goodness sake…" she mumbled before stomping in, ripping some paper towels, got them wet from the still running sink and shoved the wad of brown paper in Danny's face. Literally _in_ his face.

"Sheesh, Sam, you basically punched me!" Danny complained as he stumbled back from her.

"Stop messing around then!"

"I'm not!"

"Then I'll do it for you, slowly this time."

Danny groaned again but let Sam approach him with the wet towels. This time, she gently lowered the wad to his cheek and it finally made contact with his skin.

Sam gently scrubbed Danny's entire face with the non-hygienic brown wads of germ heaven until his face was dripping with water.

"Better now?" She raised one eyebrow.

"Yeah, let's go to class and hope Mr. Lancer doesn't kill us for being 20 minutes late."

Both noticed Tucker snicker 'lovebirds' and both decidedly ignored him.

"Mr. Fenton, Ms. Manson, and Mr. Foley. Care to explain why the three of you are almost 30 minutes late to class?" Mr. Lancer drawled as the three entered their English classroom.

The three glanced at each other. The boys shrugged and gave a weak smile to their teacher while Sam crossed her arms and _glared._

To Mr. Lancer's credit, he did not seem intimidated by her. The rest of the class, however, shivered. The "loser-trio" were forced to sit at the three empty desks front and center since nobody sits in those seats willingly. Even the nerds had determined the seats closest to the walls were better than the seats directly in front of their portly instructor.

"In that case, I think it would best if someone would catch you up. Ms. Gray, care to elaborate?"

Valerie Gray had been giggling about something with her best friends in the A-list group, Paulina Sanchez and Star Hudson. She rolled her eyes with her friends before turning to Mr. Lancer, her dark green eyes somehow transforming into pure, innocent eyes as she "innocently" blinked at Mr. Lancer and said,

"Sorry, Mr. Lancer, but I forgot what we were talking about."

The three girls burst into silent giggles and went back to their chattering. Mr. Lancer sighed and continued where he had left off, lecturing on Jane Austen's social critique in her books and why she was praised and criticized for it.

Danny's palm quickly found its sweet spot with his cheek. The classroom was so warm, and Mr. Lancer's monotone was so boring in a surprisingly relaxing way, Danny's eyes couldn't help but droop.

Danny (and many others) have gotten away with sleeping in class. It was at this moment, however, that Danny's entire right arm, from his elbow to his hand, decided to turn intangible and therefore effectively face-planted Danny's head with the desk.

" _Mr. Fenton_."

Mr. Lancer's voice was _deadly_.

"Care to play out Mr. Darcy's role as he confesses his love to Elizabeth Bennet? Since simply listening to it seems to _bore you so._ "

Danny had never been more terrified of Mr. Lancer than in that moment.

"Right. Come up here. We'll need a Ms. Bennet… Ms. Sanchez, if you please."

Paulina rolled her eyes and sauntered up to the front of the classroom, her hips almost swaying seductively as if she was a fully-grown woman. While Paulina had a much more feminine body in comparison to her peers, it was still the body of a 14-year-old and thereby was not as curvy as she wanted it to be. It did not stop the boys drooling at her, though.

If Mr. Lancer knew anything about teenagers, it was that embarrassment was a pretty good way to ensure they never did a certain thing _ever again_. Which was why he picked Ms. Sanchez. Every grade in their small high school had a Paulina Sanchez. Mr. Lancer was aware of the social order, and while he knew he couldn't do much to change it, he knew he could help the individuals that found themselves stuck at the bottom of the pecking order. Even if that meant being a little harsh with them.

Danny shakily stood up and joined Paulina at the front of the room. Mr. Lancer handed the two teens each a copy of Pride and Prejudice and told them to turn to chapter 34.

Mr. Lancer had always introduced Pride and Prejudice this way: bring up a male and female to act out this iconic moment in the classic. He handed the two books to Danny and Paulina that respectively had the lines they were to say underlined appropriately for the two characters.

"I want you to start, Mr. Fenton; please read what is underlined and follow along with Ms. Sanchez. Ms. Sanchez, I ask you to do the same."

The room paused with anticipation as Danny started to shake a little.

"'In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how'," Danny gulped "'ardently I admire and love you.'"

The class immaturely erupted into giggles as Danny's face turned bright red.

'Don't turn invisible, please don't turn invisible', Danny prayed.

Paulina was in no mood to play Elizabeth Bennet. She spoke in a bored, monotonous tone:

"'In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot—I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation.'"

Mr. Lancer was cringing as Paulina spoke. He had never heard anyone, never even thought it possible, that someone could read this powerful moment as dully as Paulina did. He really wanted to shake the girl for ruining his lesson, but refrained.

Danny was still shaking when he read Mr. Darcy's reply.

"'And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavor_ at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.'"

Danny was almost as bad as Paulina, but only because he was shaking in nervousness of being _discovered._

"'I might as well enquire why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?'"

Mr. Lancer was quivering. It should not be possible that those words were uttered with such… _indifference!_ This was **sacrilege!** She continued.

"'I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind. Can you deny that you have done it?'"

Half of the class were ignoring what was even being said. This was a complete disaster.

"'I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been kinder than towards myself.'"

Danny had no clue what he was reading, he was simply focusing on ignoring the urge to want to turn invisible. He knew his mental commands and wants were somehow connected to his new… powers, and he was focusing the best he could on not wanting to turn invisible and flee the room right then and there.

Paulina continued with her awful narrative.

"'But it is not merely this affair on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? Or under what misrepresentation, can you here impose upon others?'"

"'You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns,'" Danny said very weakly, instead of the uprising anger Mr. Darcy in that situation felt.

"'Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?'" Paulina was somehow checking her nails while holding the book up and reading the lines underlined. Her voice was still monotoned and Mr. Lancer was dying inside hearing one of his favorite moments in the classic being brutally ripped apart by two teenagers. In the past, the students at least _tried_ to feel the emotions, and usually once they tried, they succeeded, but these two didn't even _care._

"'His misfortunes! Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.'" Danny was trying to lessen his embarrassment by putting a little contempt in his voice, but it was still pathetically weak.

Paulina did not continue until Danny cleared his throat.

"Oh-uh, where were we?" she asked.

"'And of your infliction,'" Mr. Lancer sighed, before pinching the bridge of his nose.

"'And of your infliction you have reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! And yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.'"

"'And this is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater policy concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination – by reason, by reflection, by every thing. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath your own?'"

Danny had, by this point, gained enough power in his voice to hold his classmates' attention. He had found enough confidence to _not_ disappear, and he was feeling pretty good about himself. Mr. Lancer even looked at Danny with a little awe at the boy's sudden change from embarrassed and nervous to an _almost_ Mr. Darcy.

What Danny (and the rest of the class) didn't know was that Danny's new ghost half had provided a little echo in Danny's voice, which gave Danny's voice _power._ By the time Danny had finished his line, his voice echoed around the room in such a way that people couldn't help _but_ listen to him. The students were captivated, and the teacher even more so.

Paulina seemed to be the only one unaffected, somehow. She continued in her dull tone.

"'You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner. You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.'"

"'You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.'"

Danny's voice had lost its power by the time Paulina had finished her last line, so unfortunately, the lesson could not have been saved. Danny was simply grateful that he could sit down and hope to not be teased for the first line. Before he could sit down, though, his body seemed to insist that it embarrass Danny even further.

To the classes great amusement and Danny's greater horror, Danny's jeans suddenly fell to the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

Fortunately for Danny, nothing ghostly happened in front of other people the rest of that day. Unfortunately for Danny, rumors had spread of the embarrassing English class and the rest of the day was spent being teased and laughed at by his fellow peers.

It got so bad that even Jazz approached him at lunch. She told him it was natural to feel embarrassed, but to remember not to lash out in anger at anyone because that would only make it worse. She "reassured" Danny by telling him that it would all be forgotten within a couple of months.

Jazz's intentions and actions, no matter how honorable or heartfelt, did nothing to comfort Danny. It only confirmed that the events that happened that morning had successfully travelled throughout their entire school of 300 students, since Jazz _never_ listened to gossip. If the story had reached _Jazz_ , it meant that everyone in their school, from the janitor to the geek to the A-lister to the principal, knew what had occurred in Mr. Lancer's English class that morning.

Sam and Tucker could not do much more than glare at people staring at Danny. They knew that anything they said would go in one ear and out the other.

By the time the last class was over, Danny could not be more excited to go home.

Sam and Tucker had a different plan in mind.

"OK, we're going to my house," Tucker announced as the trio started walking away from their prison.

"What? When did we decide that? Did I miss that?" Danny asked, then turned to Sam.

"Did I miss that?" he whispered.

"You saw what happened earlier today. You need to gain some control over these new… powers."

"My parents will be going out tonight, so the house will be empty. Perfect for testing new powers!" Tucker seemed a little too excited.

"Tucker, are you OK?" Danny asked.

"Sorry, it's just, you've got powers, dude! And sure, right now, you're still getting used to them, but this happens to every comic book hero when they first get their powers! And that's just so… cool!"

"Try saying that when your pants randomly fall to the floor on you," Danny retorted. Sam snorted at that commented.

"What?" Danny rounded on Sam, who coughed, but quietly snickered when Danny turned away from her.

"You actually sounded really cool for a minute there, when you were reading in English today," Sam complimented.

"Thanks Sam," Danny smiled. Tucker smirked at the 'lovebird' moment, but said nothing. 

"Help yourself to whatever's in the pantry or fridge," Tucker said as they entered his home.

Sam was, for some reason, slightly uncomfortable with eating in Danny or Tucker's house unless the food was specifically offered to her, so Danny and Tucker took up to saying it every time all three went to either Danny or Tucker's house, even though Danny and Tucker were both so used to each other's families that they were practically brothers.

When Danny brought this up to his sister (in an attempt to ask for advice in case it was _girl things_ ), Jazz went on different possible tangents on what could cause it. She predicted that Sam simply did not want to consume something that other people bought, with causes ranging from Sam is super poor and knows what going without food is like and therefore food is very valuable and does not want to be rude by simply _taking it without asking or being offered first_ , to she's simply polite, to she's super rich and doesn't want to take food from people who doesn't have as much as she does.

Danny was confused with all of Jazz's options because "we're her friends" and "that's what friends do at their friends' homes".

That triggered Jazz's next half hour long explanation on what happens to a person's psyche when said person had a very lonely childhood and how that could have affected Sam.

Danny was only 12 when this conversation occurred, so he could only grin sheepishly when Jazz asked him if he understood what she was saying. Jazz proceeded to ruffle Danny's hair and tell him that he "would understand when [he's] older".

Danny snapped out of his memories when he realized that Sam had asked him a question.

"Sorry, what? I zoned out for a minute," Danny apologized. Sam rolled her eyes.

"I asked which 'power' you have most control over. We could start with that and go on from there."

Danny sighed as he realized that he would have no break from worrying about the accident or his little "problem" from said accident.

"We should go up to my room for this," Tucker piped in from the kitchen. A minute later, he came in to the room Sam and Danny was in balancing two bowls of chips, a bowl of popcorn, three cans of soda, and a bowl of varied veggies for Sam.

"How are you even holding all of tha-" Sam started to ask before the precarious act started to topple.

"Nevermind, I'll take this-" she grabbed the veggie bowl "-and this," she took the bowl of popcorn, then, after a moment's thought, "and this."

She took one of the cans of soda that was in Tucker's hand.

"Hey, Tuck, do you want any more help with that?" Danny asked.

"Sure, here-"

"I don't know if that's a good idea…" Sam interrupted.

"What? Why- oh." Danny looked down at his shoelaces in embarrassment. "Do you really think I'd drop-"

"Yes," Sam interrupted again. "I think it would be best if we don't let you handle anything valuable" she lifted the arm carrying the veggie bowl," until you learn how to control your new 'powers' better."

Danny was going to argue with Sam that he could manage carrying a bowl of chips up the stairs, but Sam arched an eyebrow and he fell silent. He knew that Sam was in the right, this time. (He'd get her next time.)

"Fine," Danny sighed. Tucker and Sam turned to walk up the stairs to Tucker's room, with Danny following them a second later. Halfway up the stairs, though, Danny's foot went intangible and he stepped into the stair and then inconveniently became tangible again, leaving Danny stuck. On the stairs. In a stair.

Danny huffed before calling up to his friends for help. Sam and Tucker appeared at the top of the stairs, confused.

"What is it?" Tucker asked.

"My foot's stuck."

"What?" Both asked at the same time.

"My foot! It's stuck in the stair." Danny crossed his arms.

"No way…" Tucker gasped. The two went down to where Danny was and saw that Danny's foot was, indeed, stuck within the carpet and whatever the material beneath it was made of.

"You can't lift your foot out?" Sam asked. Danny glared at her for a second before saying,

"You don't think I'd have done that already if I could?"

Sam looked taken aback, and Danny sighed before rubbing his eyebrows as he apologized.

"Sorry, Sam, I didn't mean to lash out at you like that. Forgive me?" Danny gave Sam a small and weary smile.

"'Course I forgive you, Danny. Let's just find out how to get you out."

Tucker was mentally barfing at the lovebird moment, but ignored the impulse to actually go and physically barf at that disgustingly sappy moment to examine where Danny's leg met the floor and disappeared _into_ the floor. He poked at Danny's leg.

"Ow! Dude!" Danny complained.

"How is this even possible, dude? How can your foot be tangible within a solid object? You'd have to be moving your molecules at a fast-enough speed like the Flash, but that would just mimic your intangibility. How is this possible? Are you making the area that your foot is in intangible? That wouldn't make sense, you should still be able to get out. Your foot and the stair can't _both_ be tangible, then there would be two solid objects within the same space, and that shouldn't be _possible!_ "

Tucker was first, and foremost, a hacker. He didn't really care much for biology or anatomy, but mathematics was something he enjoyed researching when it helped his hacker abilities, and his second love was physics and chemistry. What Danny was doing did not make sense to Tucker.

"Can you feel your foot?" Sam asked.

"It definitely feels weird. I don't know how to explain it, but I can't move it. I can feel it, but I can't move it."

"Maybe your foot is taking up the space in the space between the molecules in the stair." Tucker was rubbing his chin in his mock thinking pose (except he was actually thinking this time).

Both Sam and Danny stared confusedly at Tucker.

"I'm sorry, could you say that again? I'm not sure I completely follow," Danny asked.

"OK, you see this wall?" Tucker pointed to the wall behind his head.

"Yeah?" Sam said. "So?"

"It's solid, right? I can knock on it and my hand wouldn't go through," Tucker knocked on the wall beside him just to prove his point.

"Well, Danny's hand might…" Sam snickered.

"Sam, not the time right now," Danny growled.

"Well, what we'll be learning in Chemistry next year is that there is actually a lot of space in between the molecules in the wall. The only reason why it seems like it doesn't have a lot of space is because the molecules are vibrating really close to each other, unlike liquids or gases."

"I'm still confused. Why are we talking about chemistry?" Danny asked.

"Tucker, what on earth are you trying to say?" Sam snapped.

Tucker seemed to be really frustrated that Sam and Danny weren't getting what he was trying to say.

"Sam, what would happen to your hand if you put it in a glass of water?"

"Uhh… my hand would get wet and the water level would rise?"

"Right, and why is the water rising?"

"Because my hand is taking up the space where the water was before. What does this have to do with Danny's foot stuck in the stair?"

"When you put your hand in the water, the water moved, right? Because the molecules in water aren't as bound together as the wall, or the stair, are. We wouldn't have to worry about getting our hand stuck in the wall because the wall wouldn't let our hand through. Danny didn't have to worry about it either, until, you know, yesterday happened. But what I'm trying to say is that there is space, empty space, in between the molecules in the stair, and empty space in between Danny's molecules in his body. We have that too. But Danny can get through the first, initial barrier that the stair put up, by becoming intangible. Once his foot became tangible again, though, Danny's molecules had to fit in the empty space in between the molecules in the stair. That's why Danny can't really control his foot, because the molecules of the stair are in Danny's empty spaces in between _his_ molecules! Am I making any sense?"

Danny's eyebrows were scrunched together and Sam's mouth was unashamedly open in confusion.

"What?"

"I get it!" Danny said super loudly. "Sheesh, Tuck, why didn't you just say so?"

Sam seemed to want to understand what was going on before shrugging.

"So what are we going to do to get Danny's foot out?" she asked.

"Uhhh…" Tucker was admittedly at a loss there. 

**A/N If any of the sentences sound awkward, please tell me so I can fix it. If any of my science is incorrect, please correct me on that too. The thing with superheroes is that they seem to enjoy breaking the Laws of Nature. Superman especially. Sometimes, though, the science makes sense, if a human could do what those superhumans... do.**

 **To be honest, I have no clue where I'm going with this story. I have a lot of ideas, but I can't really expand on those ideas until I get further into the show. So this might be boring for some people if they don't want to see expansions on the character of the characters, or if they don't want to read... psychological analyzing.**

 **Thanks for reading this though! If you have any suggestions or feedback, I would love to hear it!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N Thanks for the reviews!**

 **MsFrizzle: Oh my goodness, I totally forgot about that! Oh well, I can just excuse that away with ghost anatomy and biology.**

 **The Dragon Legend: That's probably what's going to happen until the later part of Season 3. I love the show, but it started getting weird and not making sense to me towards the end, especially with Phantom Planet. I get some people love it (because Danny's finally revealed for real, and Danny and Sam finally get together and admit their feelings for each other) but it was rather rushed.**

 **Kimera20: Thank you for sticking with me and reviewing from the beginning! You're awesome :) Your words brighten my day.**

 **OrangeWolf4: I'm flattered that you think so highly of this story so early on! I will do my best to not disappoint!**

 **I'm not asking for reviews: I'm just saying that I wouldn't mind getting feedback on what you thought about certain parts. Honestly, I'm just happy that people like this. ^.^ I hope you enjoy!**

Danny eventually managed to turn his leg intangible and remove his foot from the stair, but then it _stayed_ intangible and Sam and Tucker had to help Danny hop up the rest of the stairs with his tangible leg. The three quickly went through their homework (Danny's leg decided to return to a tangible state again after they entered Tucker's room) and turned their attention to Danny and his new abilities.

Danny only managed to learn how to turn himself from intangibility to tangibility, but they decided that that was good enough for that day. It's easier to explain someone disappearing as a trick of the eye than someone's arm or leg going through a _wall._

When Danny was finally home, he was immediately snatched by his parents (who had also kidnapped Jazz) to show them all the wonderful scientific research they could now _officially_ begin since their portal was working.

Something within Danny just _snapped._ This was the portal that made him the way he was, that was giving him these problems. **This** was the portal that put him through all that _pain,_ that _almost killed him._

And his parents created that thing.

Danny saw red. His mouth dipped into a frown, then a scowl. His brow furrowed and he felt nothing but _hate_ for the invention that changed him into a ghost, and for his parents who invented it.

They weren't even looking into what had happened to make it start up! They were admiring their invention and loving it and the new inventions that they could _finally_ make since they now had access to unlimited ectoplasm, which was super rare and expensive and all of their inventions required ectoplasm to even _work._

Danny began growling at his parents as they rambled on about all of the wonderful new inventions they could now try out and all of the research they could start investigating, before he screamed,

"We don't _care_ about your stupid inventions!"

Jazz's head whipped around to look at Danny. She had previously been picking through her brain trying to piece together an argument to get her parents to just _stop_ looking for ghosts and use their inventions and intelligence for the good of the world!

All of her mental notes dropped when she realized that convincing her parents would have to wait. For some reason, Danny was displaying rage: this needed immediate investigation.

Investigating the root of Danny's current imbalance in his psyche would be delayed, though. As soon as Danny finished his outburst, the lab was shrouded in red light and an alarm started blaring.

"WARNING. GHOSTLY ENERGY DETECTED. WARNING. GHOSTLY ENERGY DETECTED. WARNING. GHOSTLY ENERGY DETECTED. WARNING. GHOSTLY ENERGY DETECTED." Jack's recorded voice echoed through the room.

Danny's clenched fists relaxed slightly when the alarm started ringing through the room. Jack and Maddie immediately leaped into action, grabbing the closest prototype to them and ushering their children towards the door, facing the portal the entire time.

"Get out, kids, and lock the door behind you. Don't let us out until we knock on the door three times and give the password, 'fudge'." Jack ordered. Jazz and Danny slightly hesitated, but their father was hardly ever this serious, so it seemed a good idea to them to obey his commands.

The two quickly ran up the stairs, slammed the door shut and turned the lock.

Danny was about to sneak away, but Jazz was somehow quicker than lightning when she grabbed his wrist.

"Oh no you don't, you need to have a good session."

"What?! JAZZ! I don't want to have to go through your crazy psychologic-whatever stuff too!"

"I know that you don't like it when I do it, but it's for your own good, Danny! You're showing anger, and there could be a bunch of different reasons why you're showing it! You need to find the reason why you're angry and deal with it in the right ways that doesn't hurt you or the people around you!"

 _As much,_ Jazz mentally added.

Danny groaned.

"Danny…" Jazz warned.

"Fine! I'll go through your stupid 'session', but you have to leave me alone for the rest of the evening and all of tomorrow afterwards," Danny knew that if he demanded Jazz leave him alone for a week, the way he wanted to, she would say that it was impossible and go through the session anyway. At least she would leave him alone for about 24 hours after this.

"Deal," Jazz smirked. "Up into my office, now." She stepped behind Danny and shoved him towards the stairs.

"What about Mom and Dad?" he asked.

"Well, there's no ghost down there because ghosts don't exist, so they'll probably stand down there for about 20 minutes and then go back to their toys. Dad will forget about the rule that he gave us to not open the door unless they knock three times and say that the password is 'fudge', and you know what that means…"

Danny turned around and was surprised to see that Jazz had a _mischievous twinkle_ in her eyes.

"No way… you're not thinking of…"

She simply nodded and smirked.

"Oh, this is going to be so much _fun!_ " Danny rubbed his palms up and down as he smirked as well.

"But only if you agree to remove the second part of our current contract."

"What?!" Danny knew what Jazz was talking about and groaned. He fell for it _again_. This was the sixth time this year that Jazz had manipulated Danny into doing what she wanted him to do. And there was _no way_ that Danny could refuse because the opportunity to prank their parents hardly _ever_ came, so he had no choice _but_ to go along with Jazz's proposition.

"Fine, you win this round," Danny mumbled. Jazz smirked _again_ , then turned to her open door (the two had been walking up the stairs to their bedrooms) and gestured for Danny to enter. Danny slouched and slid his feet against the carpet as he entered his sister's room.

His sister could be quite evil, sometimes.

Scratch that. Jazz was ALWAYS evil, she just hid it behind wide smiles, unnatural optimism, and a genuine care for other people's mental welfare.

Jazz pulled up her chair (and snatched her clipboard and notebook from her table) to the side of her bed and Danny lay down on it, staring up at Jazz's ceiling.

"Danny, earlier today, you were subject to the judgement of your fellow peers. How do you feel about that?"

Danny sighed, knowing that this was going to be an awful 'session'.

"Embarrassed."

"What did you want to do to stop being embarrassed?"

Danny paused. He knew that there was a chance that he _might_ actually turn invisible if he voiced, or even thought, what he wanted to say. He glanced over at Jazz and realized that she was looking at him, and not at her clipboard. Well, there goes that response.

"I wanted to…"

"What?" Jazz asked.

Danny sighed. "I wanted to punch someone. Dash, probably, but I wanted them to _stop_. I wanted them to stop staring at me, to stop whispering behind my back."

He was being honest. He also didn't want to be… seen. Danny didn't know if he had turned invisible or not, but Jazz was looking at her clipboard, so Danny quickly looked down at his hand. It was still visible.

"So you wanted to physically hurt someone. Have you had any more of these violent tendencies, or want to react to something violently?"

"…yes…"

"May I ask when? And where?"

"Just now, downstairs, when Mom and Dad were showing us their new ideas for inventions."

"Right before the alarm went off?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm." Jazz was in her full psychiatrist mode. Her voice and actions remained completely detached and neutral from Danny and their family.

"And what did you do?" Danny was used to answering questions that Jazz already knew the answer to.

"I said hurtful things."

"What were you feeling when you said those things?"

"I was really angry." Danny left it at that: he didn't want to say that he felt hate as well. Jazz didn't fall for it, though.

"You were more than just angry, though."

 _Dang it, Jazz!_

"I… felt hate." Jazz's eyes slightly widened, but she quickly blinked it away and continued.

"And why were you feeling those emotions?"

Danny was silent for a few moments. Why _was_ he feeling those emotions?

Then he remembered.

"They… Mom and Dad, they didn't even ask how our day was. As soon as I came home, they dragged us down to the lab and showed us all their new _inventions_ and _theories_ , all thanks to the _portal_. They care about their work more than they care about their own kids!" Danny's fists were clenched again and he was starting to breathe heavily.

Jazz was immediately on high alert.

"Deep breaths, Danny. In, and then out. In, and then out."

Danny glared at Jazz.

"No, you had your little 'session'. I'll be in my room. Don't bother me." He stalked out of Jazz's room and slammed the door to his bedroom.

Jazz's eyes were tearing up, but she blinked them away and looked down at her notes.

Convincing her parents to give up ghost hunting for other scientific achievements would _definitely_ have to wait. Danny was too important to ignore, and their family was at a tipping point. Their mom and dad were too excited to notice if anything was wrong in their family, anyway.

That left Jazz with the responsibility to keep their family together, and Jazz would rather be proved wrong than have her family torn apart.


	8. Chapter 8

Danny was not in a good mood the next day. He was, to put it mildly, really _really_ _ **really**_ ticked off.

His entire night was interrupted by waking up beneath his bed, floating in the living room, or even down on the cold, hard basement floor.

Danny didn't need any more reason to be grumpy the next morning. Unfortunately, his parents gave him plenty.

Danny woke up to his parents arguing in his bedroom. Apparently, their new invention, the "Fenton Ectoradiation Detector", was not working or there was a huge amount of ectoradiation in Danny's bedroom.

Truth be told, each room had trace amounts of ectoradiation in them due to the proximity of the Fenton Lab, but Danny's room mysteriously increased in its concentration to approximately the same amount of ectoradiation as the lab downstairs.

Jack and Maddie Fenton were naturally highly confused and concerned for their son's safety.

"I just don't understand how Danny's room could suddenly have so much exposure to ecto-energy. We need to find the source before it hurts Danny!"

"I'm telling you, Mads, it was the ghost from last night! The spook must have flown up and through Danny's room when he escaped last night."

"But simply flying through the room shouldn't leave so much radiation in the room."

Maddie's device started beeping more rapidly when she pointed it in Danny's direction.

"Jack, honey-"

"GHOST!"

Jack threw the ecto-net prototype at Danny, who did not appreciate waking up tangled in a net.

"GAH! Wha- Mom? Dad? What are you doing? Why the heck are you in my room?!" Danny tried (and failed) to remove the net. "Why is there a net on me?"

"JACK! Remove the net from our son! Just because there's a high reading of ectoradiation around Danny does not mean that he's a ghost!"

Maddie's scolding brought Jack back to reason, who stomped forward (just because of his body mass, he wasn't angry or anything) and helped Danny out of the netting.

"Sorry about that, Dann-o! Say, shouldn't you be getting ready for school?" Jack beamed at Danny and ruffled his hair. Danny quickly tried to flatten it again.

"Don't mind us, dear, we're just trying to figure out why your bedroom seems to be showing a higher level of ectoradiation. We'll have your room cleaned of it in no time!" Maddie turned back to scanning Danny's bed and the walls surrounding it, but then turned back to Danny.

"Hm. That's odd, the highest reading is coming from you, Danny."

"What?"

"Why would you be showing high readings of ectoradiation? Have you been sneaking into the lab without proper protection?" Maddie's voice turned from confusion to motherly scolding.

"What?! No…"

"Danny… don't lie to your mother!" Maddie scolded. "Ecto-energy is dangerous! It could severely damage your cells!"

"Have you been playing around in the lab, Dann-o?" Jack asked. He was not as scolding as Maddie.

"I… might have been in the lab when the portal started up…"

"What?!"

Both Maddie and Jack were shocked to hear this.

"Were you close to the portal when it started up?" Jack asked.

"Were you exposed to any ecto-energy?" Maddie added.

"…Maybe…" Danny offered sheepishly.

"You should have told us immediately! The energy burst from the portal could have hurt you! Just like it hurt…" Maddie's voice lowered to barely a whisper at the last sentence, so Danny couldn't hear what she had said, but Jack heard what Maddie had said and gave her a comforting hug.

"You're going to have to skip school today." Maddie decided.

"What? I can't miss school. I have to go to class!" Danny complained.

 _And I can't stay here!_ He thought.

"We need to make sure that you aren't affected by the ecto-energy! We'll take you to school once we're done, Danny-boy!" Jack boomed.

Danny merely groaned and fell back on to his bed.

Danny's morning was not going well. His parents had taken two blood samples, a hair sample, a urine sample, a saliva sample, and even a sweat sample.

Danny had no clue why his parents needed that many samples, but they insisted that there had been a case of overexposure to ecto-energy before and that they needed the samples to see if Danny was going through the same symptoms.

They also scanned his body with several strange looking instruments of their own making.

Danny was nervous during the entire process. He had no clue what his parents could find in his blood, or sweat, or in the scans they took.

He was also very annoyed at how they seemed to pore over their equipment and samples more than they seemed to pore over him. And Jazz, but she wasn't there at the moment, so out of sight, out of mind.

He was sick of it. For as long as he could remember, Danny and Jazz spent most of their free time alone (or together when they were younger) or with their friends while their parents were down in the basement tinkering away. Sure, Jack and Maddie did their best to raise their kids to be good and they had family dinners, which usually ended in disaster because the parents had a habit of bringing their work with them to the table. The family also spent Sundays out in the park, but the adults brought their work with them there, too, and they tended to work on theories or blueprints while keeping an eye out on their kids.

Jazz could remember a time when their parents weren't as obsessed with their work. She was their first-born, so for a few years, when Jazz was a toddler and Danny was a small baby, Jack and Maddie's world revolved around their children.

Work on the portal started when Danny was almost 5. Jack and Maddie tried their best to spend as much time with their children as possible, but they were scientists in an obscure field of study: investors were few and far between. Maddie took a second job as a housecleaner to help pay the bills and keep food on the table. It wasn't until the portal was almost complete when more investors became interested in FentonWorks.

That was around the time Danny was 12. As Danny entered his teenage years, he found the little time he had with his parents started to dwindle down to almost nothing. Jazz had grown up quickly once her parents stopped doting on her and had taken it upon herself to help Danny keep his childhood as long as possible.

When the portal didn't seem to work, Danny's parents weren't just disappointed: they were _devastated_. Not just because their life's work didn't turn out the way they hoped, but because their family's entire _livelihood_ depended on the portal working. All of FentonWorks' investors were hanging on Jack and Maddie's promise that the portal would work. If the portal didn't work, the Fentons lost their investors; if the Fentons lost their investors, they lost their source of income.

It didn't take a genius to figure out how devastating that could be for the family.

Danny, however, did not know this. He thought that the investors were only interested in the weapons that FentonWorks could dish out (because he secretly thought the weapons his parents designed were pretty cool).

Danny, in his misunderstanding, could not help but let the green little monster inside of him feed the red little monster, which soon bubbled into a red behemoth struggling against its chains.

Danny was sitting in a plastic chair and glaring at his parents, who both had their backs turned on him. This was probably a good thing, because Danny's eyes were glowing a toxic bright green that his parents would immediately recognize as liquid ectoplasm and would thereby intensify their testing.

None of the Fentons noticed Danny's eyes, including Danny himself, so nothing really happened. Danny's anger seemed to fester, but it seemed the more he glared at his parents, the angrier he got.

Danny's vision suddenly turned green and Jack's back arched as if something had slapped him on the back.

"OUCH!"

Danny's anger abated (and his eyes returned to their human blue) when he saw his dad was hurt. And the small scorch mark on the back of the orange HAZMAT suit his dad wore.

"Honey, what happened?" Maddie asked.

"I don't know, Maddie! It stings!" Jack described. Maddie turned to see the small scorch mark on Jack's back.

"Hmm." Maddie hummed as she touched the scorch mark.

Danny took his parents' distraction as an opportunity to get away. Unbeknownst to Danny (and his parents, obviously), he had turned invisible halfway up the stairs to the kitchen, which triggered the ecto-energy detector.

The alarm for ghostly energy blared in the basement, distracting his parents even more.

They did remember to tell Danny to get to school, though.

"GET TO SCHOOL, DANNY-BOY, WE'LL TAKE CARE OF THIS GHOST! IT'LL BE SAFE BY THE TIME YOU GET HOME!" Jack yelled.

Danny didn't need to be told twice. He raced up the stairs to his bedroom, grabbed his backpack, and practically flew out the door.

 **A/N I experienced my first writer's block in this story with this chapter. Grr. Next chapter will probably be worse. Thanks again for the lovely reviews/favorites/follows!**


	9. Chapter 9

It was almost lunchtime by the time Danny reached the school, so he walked to the cafeteria doors and waited for the lunch bell to ring.

The instant Sam and Tucker saw Danny, they sprinted to his side and started asking questions of his whereabouts.

"Where _were_ you?" Sam hissed.

"Why are you late?" Tucker added.

"Long story, I'll tell you over lunch," Danny groaned before jerking his head towards the cafeteria, which clearly expressed his desire to go sit down.

When the trio had their lunches, and were sitting at their claimed "Loser Table", Danny started his rant.

He started on what happened the night before, where his parents were gushing over the portal and their inventions, prototypes, blueprints, etc.

Unfortunately, the more he thought about it in his angered state, the more hatred for his parents he felt. He was jealous of his parent's work because he truly believed that his parents cared more about ghosts than they did their own children.

Then he started complaining about Jazz and how he hated it whenever she dragged him into her room to psychoanalyze him.

"Then she dragged me into her room and asked me how I _felt_ when Mom and Dad were showing us their stupid inventions! She didn't even care when I said that I _hated_ them for loving their work more than us! Their own kids! She probably doesn't care, either! She doesn't care about me, or what Mom and Dad do or don't! All she's ever loved in her life are her books and psychology! I _hate_ her!"

What Danny didn't realize was that Jazz was right behind him. Sam and Tucker knew this because they were sitting on the other side of the table, facing Danny. They saw Jazz's broken eyes at Danny's words and the way her mouth opened and closed as if she had no idea what to say about what had just come out of Danny's lips. They saw her lips begin to tremble and her eyes water at Danny's proclamation for how he felt about his sister at that moment before her eyes hardened and her lips set into a firm frown.

Jazz quickly spun around on her heel and stalked away.

Danny didn't notice Sam or Tucker's grim expressions: he was too angry to notice anything around him. He continued to what happened that morning with his parents and the embarrassing (and gross) samples they had taken from him.

That caught his friends' attention from Jazz.

"Wait, they took _blood samples?_ " Tucker gasped, absolutely horrified at the thought of needles.

"They asked for your _urine?_ " Sam scrunched her nose, clearly disgusted.

"Something about stomach enzymes and the digestive track," Danny explained. (Jack and Maddie were testing to see if Danny's diet needed to be adjusted in case something within his digestive system _had_ been affected, but Danny didn't know that.)

"What if they find out that you're _part ghost?"_ Tucker whispered anxiously.

"I don't know!" Danny sighed. "Do you think your parents might take me in if my parents disown me?"

"I know _my_ parents wouldn't," Sam muttered.

"At least _your_ parents are normal, while _I'm_ stuck with the town's freaks."

"I think _everyone's_ parents have their little weird quirks-" Tucker started, but then realized that Danny was glaring green eyes at him, "-buuuut, I have to agree with you there, Danny, you're parents take the cake. _Please don't kill me."_ He raised his hands in surrender to Danny, who stopped glaring at Tucker to glare at his lunch.

"At least _your_ parents care for you more than they care about their _work_ ," Danny muttered.

Sam and Tucker both knew that Danny had every right to have a pity party at that moment. They were moody teenagers, and teens go through at least _one_ pity party during their puberty. Danny's near-death, or half-death, experience was a perfectly acceptable trigger point for his minimum of one teenage pity party.

But, knowing teenagers, he's probably going to go through many more. As will Sam, and Tucker, and (even) Jazz (except Jazz will know that she's going through a pity party and will record everything that happens or manipulate herself out of it).

Danny ranted a little bit more about his parents and sister until his pent-up frustration seemed to finally ebb away. Tucker took that window of opportunity to bring up that Jazz had heard Danny earlier.

"Are you done being angry?"

"No!" Danny folded his arms, then sighed as he realized he had nothing more to rant about. "Yes."

"Then you should probably find Jazz and apologize for what you said earlier about hating her," Tucker advised.

"Why? She didn't hear me… did she?"

"Even if she _didn't_ hear you, you should probably apologize, anyway. I know it's a little hypocritical of _me_ to say this because of all the rants you hear from me about my parents, but saying that you _hate_ someone is really, really serious," Sam commented.

"So she heard?"

"Yep." Sam and Tucker both replied.

"Darn it." Danny sighed again and ran his hand through his messy hair. He looked at the clock in the cafeteria. "Lunchtime is almost over. Do you think I can find her in time before Biology starts?"

"Well, when wondering where Jazz is, the first place we should always check would be…" Tucker started.

"The library," Danny and Sam chimed in with Tucker.

* * *

The library was a safe-haven for Jazz. When Jazz started Preschool, she realized that the world was not a kind, warm place the way her home was. When her peers realized that her parents were the "weird, ghost-hunting freaks" of Amity Park, she became a victim to constant bullying. The friends she had made for a few, short days quickly turned their backs on her when their parents told them to "stay away from the Fenton girl".

When Jazz could not make friends with her peers, she first ran to the library to hide from the bullies. She would spend hours quivering in the corner, too afraid to go out and face the cruel world.

Naturally, spending hours upon hours hiding among the bookshelves lead to the young girl pulling books out and reading them. Hours upon hours of quivering in fear lead to hours upon hours soaking in the wondrous knowledge that the library offered her.

The library was her sanctum, the nonfiction section her teachers, the fiction section her friends. By the time the girl was in second grade, she was reading at a sixth-grade reading level. Her comprehension increased to the point that the elementary school library did not offer books that would challenge her. She quickly learned to rely on the public library.

Jazz eventually realized that she didn't understand _people_. She didn't know how to be social, or how to read people, or even empathize with them. The only people she could really understand were her family.

She recognized it as a weakness and was determined to turn it around into a strength.

She started out by reading self-help books to making friends, which eventually lead her to her current passion: psychology.

Knowing the way the mind worked helped Jazz understand _people_ better. She could empathize with them, and she began to _feel_ more than before.

It was her drug, her gateway to the life that most people took for granted. She _understood_ : she understood the people around her much better, and more importantly, she _understood herself_.

She practically swallowed books on all forms of psychology: personalities, mental illnesses and disorders, emotions, then she found books on how to _treat_ people that were mentally imbalanced, how to recognize the signs when something was wrong.

It was the best thing that happened to her in her life just short of her little brother being born.

Jazz was two and a half when Danny was born; she didn't remember much, but she remembered being super excited at the idea of having a sibling and absolutely _loving_ the little red wrinkly thing that had come out of her Mummy's tummy, even though he looked ugly at the time. He was much cuter a few hours later when he was washed up.

* * *

When Danny and his friends arrived at the library, they found Jazz intently poring over a psychology book on teenagers. She was furiously scribbling in her notebook and muttering under her breath, leaning so far towards the book that her nose almost brushed its pages.

Danny knew from personal experience that when Jazz was in that state, a person only interrupted her if they had a death wish or if it was an _urgent_ emergency.

"Come on," Danny urged his friends. "I'll apologize tonight, when she's not concentrating on her _beloved_ psychology book."

Sam and Tucker didn't have a death wish, either, so they turned with Danny and headed to their Biology class.

They didn't see Jazz break as she threw her pen down, gripped the roots of her hair with both hands (which completely messed up her teal hairband), then slid down to a resting position on the table and quietly sobbed into her arms.

 **A/N I _was_ saving this chapter to post on Christmas, but I'm impatient and couldn't wait. So instead of getting a chapter on the Eve and then on the Day, you'll be getting the Eve one now. **

**My family actually celebrates Christmas on the 24th, so expect a chapter on the 25th as a present from me, all you people who celebrate Christmas on the 25th.**

 **For those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, I wish you a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa, or a simple Happy Holidays. :)**

 **Let's hope that the next chapter is happier, but I seriously doubt it because of the way that the timing of everything worked out. Danny's stage of grief is currently in anger, and he is going to stay angry until he has no more reason to be angry. In other words, until he realizes that his parents _do_ care for him, they just have interesting ways of showing it. **

**Once again, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, or Happy Holidays! :)**


	10. Chapter 10

Danny's accidents seemed to occur more often. He broke at least five breakables in Biology because his hands decided to turn intangible at random times, which did nothing to help his patience. Mr. Lancer, who was also the Biology teacher, decided that a good punishment for Danny's 'clumsiness' was to write on his whiteboard "I will not fool around in class" at least 50 times. That punishment was rebuked, however, when the marker kept slipping out of his hand every 10 syllables.

Danny's punishment turned to not touching breakables again and letting other's handle the glassware for him.

That lead to Danny's feet deciding to turn intangible, making him even clumsier than he originally was. His foot would sink into the floor much farther than he was expecting, making him fall forward and land on his face.

By the time people heard the crash and looked over to where Danny was, his intangible leg had realigned with the rest of his body and turned tangible again. This happened at least three more times before Mr. Lancer reformed Danny's punishment to "Sit down and memorize, Mr. Fenton!" as he slammed down a blue packet of paper in front of Danny.

Danny groaned before opening the packet to see information on cells. There was a large picture of a cell with arrows pointing at various things within the cell, naming those things as "nucleus", "cell membrane", "Golgi Apparatus", and so on. There was a table on another page that listed the parts of the cell and those parts' functions within the cell.

Danny flipped through the packet and found another cell that looked the same as the first except it was square instead of round. It also had its own list of functions. He flipped the page again and found what seemed to be text copied from a textbook.

"You want me to memorize the text, too, or just the parts and functions of the cells?"

"Just the parts and functions, and the process of cell reproduction," Mr. Lancer answered.

"What? Where's that-" Danny flipped through the packet again and found four pages showing a cell splitting in two.

"Oh."

"Get to it, Mr. Fenton. There's 20 minutes left in class."

Danny tried his hardest to stay awake, he really did, but since he didn't sleep very well that night (waking up 20 times in different places in the house due to his new _powers_ ), and the information he was trying to memorize was so _boring_ (who needs to know about cells anyway?), it was only natural that his exhausted body tried to make up the lost rest it really needed to adjust to the _changes_ it went through only two days prior.

"MR. FENTON."

Danny's head shot up to see Mr. Lancer's eyes glaring at him. Two inches away from him.

He jumped and fell out of his seat, then scrambled to stand up.

"This is the second day in a row that I've caught you sleeping in my class. Care for an explanation?"

"Uhh…" was Danny's intelligent reply.

"Speaking of which, where were you this morning, Mr. Fenton? You weren't in any of my classes."

"Ummm…"

"Chicken Soup for the Soul, Mr. Fenton! Are you so incompetent that you can't answer with proper English? I know you're more intelligent than that!" Mr. Lancer burst.

The entire class was silent as they witnessed Mr. Lancer's annoyed rage.

"His parents have been very… excited, recently, sir," Tucker piped up. "One of their inventions that they've been working on for months was a success, and they've been talking non-stop about it."

"Actually, they've been working on it for years. You know about it, right?" Danny asked.

"Yes, the entire town knows about your parents' antics. Why would that make you fall asleep in my class two days in a row and make you miss all of your classes this morning?" Mr. Lancer rubbed the bridge of his nose, just waiting for the poor excuse Danny would come up with.

"I think my parents could tell you more about it than I could. They were the ones who decided to keep me from class to make sure I wasn't overexposed to ecto-energy," Danny answered.

"Ecto-energy?" Mr. Lancer drawled. He was clearly skeptic of anything Danny or his parents had to say.

Danny shrugged.

"I don't know. Mom could explain it better than I could. You could call them, if you want."

Mr. Lancer glared at Danny, resulting in the two having a stare-off, although Danny was looking more like a scared puppy facing off a fat, bald mountain lion.

Danny was literally saved by the bell.

"Don't forget about the test tomorrow, then next week, we'll be starting on cells." Mr. Lancer called out to the students fleeing.

The rest of Danny's day was riddled with tripping, dropping objects, and other random acts of clumsiness that made him even more annoyed with his powers (and his parents, since they were _obviously_ responsible for him getting his powers, even though they didn't know it) than he had ever been the past 36 hours.

* * *

Later that day, in the privacy of his room with Sam and Tucker (doing their homework), he found random body parts becoming invisible, intangible, or both.

He also discovered that any control he had over his powers were lost to him, as he couldn't turn himself tangible whenever he found himself intangible.

He blamed his parents for it all. He blamed them for messing up his social life, his family life, and finally, his life in the first place because now he obviously only had a half-life, thanks to the portal. That his parents had conveniently created.

Danny kept his anger to himself. His eyes gave his anger away, though, because he was releasing his anger by glaring holes into the floor. Not literally, but if he concentrated his anger, it would have been.

Tucker decided Danny needed to know that his eyes were glowing a bright green.

"Dude, do you think you could tone it down a little?"

"Tone what down?" Danny kept glaring at the floor.

"Your eyes."

Danny blinked, then blinked again. They didn't return to their blue color, but they weren't as bright as a neon sign in the night, the way they were before Tucker spoke.

"Thanks." Tucker returned to his homework.

"Oh, don't forget about Jazz, Danny," Sam reminded.

"Oh, yeah. I should probably do that now," Danny's eyes returned to their natural sky-blue color as he picked himself up from the floor and turned his thoughts away from his parents.

Halfway to his bedroom door, he turned around and asked,

"What should I say?"

"Just tell her that you're sorry about being an annoying little brat that doesn't appreciate everything she does for you," Sam didn't even look up from her history textbook.

"Thanks, Sam," Danny deadpanned.

"You're welcome," she flipped a page in her book, sounding way to happy about getting to dis Danny.

Danny turned again and left the room.

* * *

Jazz was busy trying to drown away her emotions by studying psychology when someone knocked on her door.

"Who is it?" she called out.

"It's Danny. Are you busy?"

"No, it's ok, you can come in, Danny," Jazz quickly brushed any tears she could have away from her cheeks.

Danny slowly opened the door and poked his head in her room. His eyes searched the room until he found Jazz sitting on her bed with her back against the head.

"Hey."

"Hey," she replied. Her teal eyes were cold as steel. Danny eyes suddenly lowered to his shoes and Jazz's carpet.

"I-I wanted to say sorry, for being a jerk, and not appreciating you," Danny swallowed.

 _Why is this so hard?_ Danny thought. _Oh yeah, I'm still mad._

Danny's eyes flashed green for a second, but Jazz didn't notice because Danny's eyes were still glued on the floor.

Jazz was silently observing Danny as he nervously shuffled his feet.

"What are you apologizing for?" she decided to ask.

Danny gulped.

"Well, earlier today, I was telling Sam and Tucker about last night's session, and I was angry enough to say that I hated you. I just wanted to apologize for saying that, and let you know that I'm grateful for you trying your best to help me with my problems, even if I don't show my appreciation for it at certain times."

Danny never looked up while he was speaking to see his sister's reaction. He wrangled his hands for a moment, then started shuffling awkwardly out of Jazz's room.

Jazz was so shocked at Danny's maturity that she hadn't even realized that her mouth was hanging open. She was only knocked out of that state when she heard Danny shut her door.

Jazz smiled and held back tears at Danny's apology. She breathed in deeply, then turned back to her work, her concentration improved since she didn't have to war with her emotions.

* * *

As soon as Danny shut the door, he let out an enormous sigh, then turned around to go back to his room. He was prevented by his parents.

"Danny! Come see the results of our tests!" Jack boomed up the stairs. Danny groaned, but walked towards the stairs, yelling to his friends that he'd be back momentarily.

He took in a deep breath, then walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, where his parents were cooking dinner.

"What... _are_ you doing?"

His parents were adding something to the soup that seemed to be... _glowing_.

" _What is that?!"_

"We found traces of ectoplasm from your digestive track and blood samples, so we've created something to combat it and that won't harm human cells. From now on, we'll be eating our food with a small amount of crushed ectoranium, a natural ecto-repellant, in case you or Jazz get too exposed to the ectoplasm within the lab," Maddie explained.

"We had some food with ectoranium for lunch! It's perfectly safe! And, it gives the food a little bit more of a crunch!" Jack exclaimed. Danny's eyes widened to the size of teacups at the glowing powder his mom was adding to the soup she was making as if it was a spice.

"What if... Jazz or I are... _allergic_ to ector-what's-it-called-"

"Ectoranium, dear. If you are, we'll find something else that will help you get rid of the ectoplasm left over from your exposure. Hopefully, your body's immune system will be enough to get rid of it, but just in case, we're adding ectoranium to the family diet as a preventative measure."

Danny's mother beamed at him before taking a spoon and sipping at her creation.

Danny's horrified face turned into a grimace when he saw his mother's scrunched nose.

"We'll have to get used to the after-taste, though," she commented.

"I'll be upstairs if you need me," Danny stammered before leaping for the stairs.

When Danny returned to his room, he started on another rant about how his weird parents were now messing around with the food and Tucker had to pry Danny off his legs, since Danny was begging Tucker to let him go home with him so that he didn't have to eat his parents' weird food.

When Danny's parents called for dinner, Sam and Tucker both made quick excuses and left Danny to his family. (But in all honesty, who could blame them?)

To put it simply, Danny was _not_ looking forward to dinner.

 **A/N So Merry Christmas! (and Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, etc.)**


	11. Chapter 11

Danny dipped his spoon in his bowl and slowly stirred the contents. The soup was a murky brown (his mom's beef soup), but it seemed to glow just a little. It smelled alright, if one ignored the distinct metallic smell the soup had to it.

A couple of bright green flecks broke the surface of the soup before disappearing into its murky depths again.

Danny swallowed.

"Are you _sure_ it's safe for humans?" Danny asked. _Or ghosts?_

"Of course it is, honey! Ectoranium is only harmful to ectoplasm, so it should remove any leftover ectoplasm that might be left in your system from your exposure. It's perfectly safe, dear," Maddie smiled at her son, proud that her son was asking questions about their work.

Danny (and Jazz) glanced at their respective bowls of soup with extreme trepidation. Jazz slowly dipped her spoon into the soup and brought the liquid up to her lips, softly blowing on it before sipping at it. She grimaced.

"It tastes… really bad, Mom, are you sure we have to eat this?" she asked.

"Yes, dear, at least this once to help your system get rid of any exposures the two of you may have had with the portal," she answered before placing a spoonful of soup in her mouth.

Jazz slowly lowered her spoon to her bowl again and sipped some more of the soup.

Danny was staring at his bowl in fear. He had _no clue_ what would happen if he even touched the soup, let alone _taste_ it.

He slowly raised his spoon to his lips and blew on the liquid. The liquid seemed to bubble a little, but Danny paid no mind to it.

The instant the liquid touched his lips, Danny threw the spoon away from him, pushed his chair back and yelled.

"It burns! It burns! It burns!" He wiped his mouth, trying to remove the burning sensation from his lips.

Maddie was instantly on her feet and pressed Danny's glass of water against his lips. Danny didn't drink any of the water, he simply dipped the glass far enough to engulf his top lip with water. The burning instantly cooled, but his bottom lip was still burning.

Danny ran to the kitchen sink and turned the cold water on full blast and slid his mouth under the wonderfully soothing liquid.

"I didn't think the soup was hot enough to burn your mouth, Danny. Why didn't you cool it down?" Jazz asked.

"I DID!" Danny yelled from the sink. "OW!"

Danny had accidently brushed his hand against the spoon next to the sink that had previously held the finely crushed ectoranium. He immediately put his hand under the running water to cool it from the burning sensation.

"Are you alright, Danny-o?" Jack asked. He had no problem gulping the soup down.

"No!" Danny said sarcastically. "I only said 'ow' just now because I felt like it!"

"What happened, Danny?" Maddie asked, walking towards Danny. "Did you accidentally cut yourself?"

"No, I don't know what happened!" He was still running his hand under the cold water. The direct contact with the ectoranium hurt a lot more than the indirect contact leftover from the soup.

"Let me see, Danny."

Maddie stood behind Danny with her arm extending to grab Danny's wrist that was running under the water.

"No, it's fine, it just burns, Mom, leave it alone," Danny complained. Maddie didn't listen to Danny as she wrenched Danny's hand away from the water. She brought Danny's hand up to her face and gasped as she saw the small amounts of burnt skin on Danny's finger.

"Danny, what happened?" She looked at the countertop, looking for a loose wire or something of the like that could cause a burn like what she saw on her son's finger. All she saw were the materials she used to make dinner.

Danny forced his hand out of his mother's grip and placed his hand under the running water again, sighing in relief as he did.

"Let me see your face, Danny."

Danny didn't respond, so Maddie moved to his other side and held his face in place. She examined Danny's lips, which also appeared to be slightly burnt, but not as badly as his finger.

 _The ectoranium!_ Maddie realized. _Danny must have been more exposed than we originally thought!_

"It seems that you have a reaction with the ectoranium, dear," Maddie pursed her lips. "I'll just order a pizza, then."

She moved to the telephone on the wall and dialed the number for the local pizzeria.

"Hello? Yes, I'd like to order three pizzas, one cheese, one pepperoni, and one deluxe," Maddie started the order.

Danny silently sighed in relief as he realized that he didn't have to eat any more of the soup. Jazz was also happy to hear that her mother was ordering enough for the entire family (Jack was half full from eating two bowls of soup already, so Maddie had only ordered three instead of five), which meant that Jazz didn't have to eat anymore of the disgusting soup.

After dinner, however, Maddie immediately grabbed Danny and pulled him down into the lab.

"What the-? Mom, what are you doing?" Danny spluttered as he bounced down the steps to the basement.

"I just realized that I need more samples to see how serious your exposure is, nothing to worry about," Maddie reassured (in her mind, it was supposed to be reassuring).

Danny went through another "Dr. Maddie Fenton" check-up, where she took the same samples and scanned him with the same devices.

"I don't understand…" she would mutter, then, "If he really was as exposed as that, he should be showing signs of ecto…" and so on.

Danny, once again, had no clue what his mother was talking about, and he honestly did not _want_ to know what she was talking about. He was immensely relieved when she said that she was done and that he could go back upstairs and go to bed.

* * *

Maddie was very confused. The data that she had analyzed from Danny's blood, sweat, saliva, urine, etc., all pointed to one thing: Vlad's case of overexposure to ectoplasmic energy and his case of ecto-acne, which caused Vlad to spend years in the hospital.

But Danny didn't seem to be showing any _symptoms_ of ecto-acne!

Maddie remembered the traumatizing day when Vlad was too close to the proto-portal. She and Jack both had to go through intense therapy to get over what happened, and the hospital refused to let them visit him in case the ecto-acne was contagious. Maddie knew that Vlad blamed Jack for what had happened, and had therefore avoided contact for his sake.

She remembered how Vlad had shown immediate changes: his shock white hair and glowing eyes clearly showed the effects of the ectoplasm in his system. Not to mention the horrible acne.

Maddie shuddered as she remembered Vlad's horrified face after being blasted with the ecto energy. If Danny was going through any of the pain that Vlad went through…

No! Maddie knew that she couldn't let what happened to Vlad happen to Danny. She would keep a close eye on him, in case any of the symptoms for ecto-acne showed.

She had to find out how the hospital finally healed Vlad. That was it. Her baby boy would _not_ go through the same pain that Vlad went through. She would make sure of it.

* * *

Danny was angry at his parents internally for the rest of the week. After taking the last samples after the "disaster dinner", Maddie was completely lost to the rest of the family. Jack kept working on designing ghost hunting weapons, Jazz kept studying more on teenage psychology, and Danny was left alone to his bitter anger.

Danny's anger eventually transformed into bitterness. Unlike his anger, though, Danny's bitter feelings did not cloud his judgement the way his anger did. (Danny's powers did act up a lot more often, which didn't help convince Danny that his powers could become a _good_ thing, but it did help Danny learn to tell the difference between the sensation of invisibility and intangibility. He learned how to _become_ invisible and intangible, but he still didn't know how to prevent himself from _accidentally_ turning invisible or intangible.)

By the end of the next school week, Danny finally realized that being mad or bitter towards his parents wouldn't change the fact that the accident _had_ happened, and that the only way he could truly move forward was by learning how to _control_ the changes that had happened to him.


	12. Chapter 12

Nearly two weeks had passed since Danny's accident. For an entire week, Danny's mood consisted of 'Tick me off and you die' to 'I hate everything in the world'. Sam and Tucker were very relieved when he slowly, but surely, became less angry at anything and _everything_ around him.

Every day after school, Danny, Sam and Tucker would quickly go through their homework together and (instead of going to the arcade, park, or Nasty Burger to hang out and have fun) worked on finding out how to use Danny's abilities.

Danny still did not have complete control over his powers. He'd still randomly turn invisible or intangible.

When Danny mentioned that it was possible that he could fly, Sam and Tucker immediately jumped at the idea and dragged him down into his parents' basement (Jack and Maddie were currently fudge shopping, since Jack's newest prototype, the "Fenton Thermos", didn't seem to be working). Jack and Maddie had both turned off the Ghostly Energy Detector since it was going off constantly after the portal started working (thanks to Danny and the fact that the Ghostly Energy Detector was highly sensitive and went off at _every_ flare of ecto-energy the portal sent out, similar to the sun's solar flares).

Danny was very relieved when he saw the blast door covering the portal. He did _not_ want to think about the strange comfort the portal seemed to pour into him whenever he saw the acid green ether swirl.

"So… flying," Tucker smirked. "How long have you known you could fly?"

Danny sheepishly grinned as he brought his hand to the back of his neck.

"Since the… accident?"

"WHAT?!" Tucker exclaimed. Sam rolled her eyes at Tucker's dramatics. Tucker ran to his friend and gripped Danny's shirt with both hands, pulling Danny's face mere inches from his. Tucker's eyes were as wide as wheels.

"You've gained the ultimate superhero ability and you DIDN'T THINK TO TELL ME?" Tucker let go and dramatically brought the back of his hand to his forehead in a 'woe is me' manner.

"How could you _do_ this to me? Your best friend!" Tucker fell to his knees, before fake-sobbing out, "I thought you _**loved**_ me, Danny!"

Tucker continued to dramatically fake sob into his hands. Sam was looking at Tucker with very wide eyes (in a very 'what the flip is Tucker doing'), while Danny simply facepalmed at his best friend's antics.

"Are you done now?" Sam asked.

"No!" Tucker wailed. He sobbed for a few more seconds, then stood up and said in his usual voice, "OK, _now_ I'm done. What were we talking about?"

"How are you going to try to fly, Danny?" Sam asked.

"Uhhh…. Hopping?" Danny grinned sheepishly again before cowering slightly at Sam's glare.

She crossed her arms across her chest and lifted an eyebrow, daring Danny to learn to fly by hopping.

Danny's face flushed as he realized that he was going to look ridiculous for the next half hour, at least. He jumped as high as he could, then fell down, tried again, and fell down again. He tried thinking happy thoughts, he tried imagining himself flying, the imaginary sensation of floating, pretending he was in space, the whole shebang. Nothing.

"You know, Danny, you seem to be able to control your fall. Your falls are inconsistent: sometimes you fall slower than other times," Tucker commented.

"When I discovered I could fly, I was floating in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground again," Danny added.

"Maybe it's because you're in your human form," Sam thought out loud. Danny and Tucker both stared at Sam as they realized that she had a point.

"I… haven't gone ghost since the day of the accident. I don't know if I still have a ghost form," Danny admitted. "What if I can't change back before Mom and Dad come back?"

"Just turn invisible, we'll make up an excuse for you and then get out of there," Sam rationalized.

Danny was nervous. He wasn't _ready_ to be _dead_ again. He wasn't ready to not have a heartbeat, to not need to breathe. He wasn't ready to experience being a _ghost_ again.

Danny took in a deep breath, then let it out.

 _I can do this, I can do this._

Danny scrunched his eyes and nose in intense concentration.

 _I am a ghost. I am a ghost. I_ _ **am a ghost.**_

A blinding flash of white light appeared around Danny and in his place was _ghost_ Danny. Danny took in a deep breath again and let it out in a loud huff.

Sam and Tucker both had not seen Danny's ghost for nearly two weeks, so seeing him change into his ghost was unnerving and reminded both of them of just how much Danny had suffered to get the powers that they were now experimenting with.

They both sobered up quickly.

"OK," Danny's voice echoed around the spacious room. "Let's try this again."

Danny jumped again, but instead of jumping a few inches off the floor and coming down again, Danny rocketed up and crashed into the ceiling. And stayed there.

Sam and Tucker both jumped and stared at Danny with wide eyes and open mouths. Danny groaned.

"Ow."

"Duuuude!" Tucker whooped. Sam was still speechless as Danny slowly picked himself up and stood on the ceiling, upside down.

"Let's not do that again," Danny commented. Instead of jumping as high as he could, Danny hopped lightly. He moved forward, but then stopped and floated, as if he was in zero gravity. Except his friends were standing upside down on the ceiling (in his perspective; he knew it was the ground, but it still looked weird).

"Try to move around, Danny," Sam called.

Danny frowned in concentration. He started by trying to "swim" right-side up. It worked, but he looked a little ridiculous doing it.

"This is _weird_ ," Danny said.

"I bet it feels weird! How does it feel not being controlled by gravity?" Tucker paused as if a realization dawned over him. " _How are you not being affected by_ _ **gravity?**_ _"_

Tucker placed both hands on his head as he realized that there was _another_ physical anomaly that now applied to his best friend.

"Yeah, why is it that ghosts have the ability to ignore the laws of physics, Danny?" Sam asked, looking up at Danny expectantly.

"Ummmm, I honestly don't know. I'm sure my parents have some scientific explanation, we'll ask them when we get back," Danny answered.

After 30 minutes of awkward floating and moving around in the air, Danny learned how to move without trying to "swim". He was mostly flying around in circles when Sam and Tucker decided to go get a snack. Danny floated down to the ground and focused on becoming human again when his parents returned.

"Gah!" Danny's eyes widened, but his stress on becoming human again didn't help. He quickly turned invisible and jumped up to the ceiling.

A lightbulb switched and Danny turned intangible and flew up to his bedroom while still invisible. It was a lot more exhausting than he thought it would be, using all three of his abilities at once.

Once in the safety of his bedroom, Danny was able to focus enough to turn back to his human form. He quickly checked to make sure that there was nothing suspicious on his person, then opened his bedroom door and walked downstairs, where Sam and Tucker were trying keep Jack and Maddie from going down to the lab by distracting them with ghost questions.

Jack caught sight of Danny and exclaimed,

"Danny's here! Now we can go downstairs and I can blather about ghosts!"

The man scooped all three teenagers into his arms and practically carried them downstairs. Once in the lab, he fetched three chairs and placed them in a line and motioned for the three kids to sit down. They did, Danny closest to the stairs, Sam in the middle with both her legs and arms crossed, and Tucker, who was closest to the ghost portal.

"So, Danny, you and your little friends want to hunt ghosts," Jack announced, crossing his arms smugly with a large grin on his face.

"Um, actually, Dad? I want to be an astronaut," Danny corrected with a small smile.

"Sorry, Mr. Fenton, I _was_ into ghosts, but their _so_ mainstream now. They're like cellphones!" Sam said in an unimpressed voice.

"Waste _these_ looks and all this charisma hunting _ghosts_? Criminal," Tucker placed a hand on his hip, and if he was standing up, his hip would be popped.

Jack Fenton wasn't even disappointed.

"Well, if you _do_ want to hunt ghosts, there's a few things you'll need to learn," Jack turned his back to the portal and the teens to the table holding multiple sized flasks filled with dangerous looking liquids.

Danny suddenly felt something cold shiver up through his body and looked down to see his breath.

 _Oh no,_ Danny thought. _This can't be good._

Danny was right. At that moment, the blast doors to the Fenton Portal opened up and two green octopus shaped ghosts with sharp teeth and red eyes came through and growled at the occupants. One grabbed the two closest living beings to them (Sam and Tucker), wrapping its tentacles around their mouths so they couldn't scream.

"True, I've never _seen_ a ghost, but when do, I'll be prepared! And so will you! _If you want to be or not!_ "

Danny turned from his dad to see his friends in the hands (tentacles) of a ghost, both ghosts staring hungrily at the extremely frightened Sam and Tucker.

Danny clenched his fists and furrowed his brows. These ghosts would _not_ hurt his friends.

Danny leapt towards the ghost holding his friends captive and subconsciously transformed into his ghost self. He punched the ghost right in the noggin before kicking the other one in the face. Surprised, the ghost dropped Sam and Tucker and the other flew to the other side of the room. Danny quickly flew towards his friends and dropped them into their chairs before flying back up to the ghost and proceeded to kick and punch the being as hard as he could. The other ghost quickly joined in.

"Sam, Tucker, this is the Fenton Thermos," Jack turned back to Sam and Tucker, handing them a green and white thermos. "It's supposed to trap ghosts," Jack continued, turning around and fiddling with the materials on the table some more. "Buuut, it doesn't work yet, it's just a thermos: a thermos with the word Fenton in front of it!" Jack grinned.

Danny punched one of the ghosts so hard it flew towards the portal, then kicked the other hard enough to for it to land right beside the other dazed ghost. They regained enough consciousness to know to flee and flew through the portal, back to where they came from.

Danny returned to his human state as he glared at the portal, then quickly jumped back to where his friends were when he realized that his dad was about to turn around and talk about the portal.

"And that? _That_ is the Fenton Portal. It releases _ghosts_ into our world whether I want it to or not!" Jack knocked on the blast door with a hint of pride in his voice. "Someday, I'll figure out how that works, too! Now-" Jack turned and walked towards the teenagers with a large grin on his face, "who wants to hunt some ghosts?"

Sam and Tucker were both quivering at their first experience with ghosts _other_ than Danny while Danny kept himself standing by leaning his body unto the chair Tucker was sitting in, trying his best to catch his breath.

"You kids, look at you! You're too excited to speak!" Jack boomed optimistically. "Soooo I'll just go on speaking. I was born many years ago in a log cabin in the woods!"

As Jack kept on speaking about ponies and eating horse meat during some war, Sam and Tucker glanced (their teeth still chattering) at Danny, who glanced back at them before dropping his head, trying his best not to think about what had just happened.

 **A/N Happy early New Year! I'll be travelling for a bit, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again. Hopefully by next week. Have a safe weekend!**


	13. Chapter 13

Danny, Sam and Tucker slowly walked into Danny's bedroom like zombies. Sam and Tucker had just experienced two hours of nothing but Jack talking about ghosts and none of it explained why ghosts could ignore the laws of physics.

Danny recovered first from the experience (because he was used to it), but his dad's ramblings on ghosts had a clear message: ghosts are malicious but fascinating blobs of ectoplasm that must be studied, and, if necessary, exterminated for others' safety.

Hearing how ghosts weren't human, humane, intelligent, etc., for two hours, though, put Danny's self-confidence in his humanity and self-worth on a downwards slope.

Not to mention what had happened with the other ghosts.

Danny didn't understand: he was weak as a human, before the accident. Dash constantly bullied him, mostly because he stood up for the other nerds and Tucker when they were in elementary school. Danny became Dash's favorite punching bag because Danny Fenton refused to stand down.

But Danny believed he was weak because he could never fight back. He took the punches, the wedgies, the embarrassing (but awful) word plays on his last name. But Danny felt weak because he didn't have the physical capabilities to stand up to Dash permanently and truly stop him from bullying his fellow peers.

But the ghosts that Danny just beat to a pulp two hours ago… they were _dead_. They were beings that had abilities that humans _didn't_ have. That _Dash_ didn't have. And he beat them. _Easily_.

It scared Danny. If he could beat the ghosts, he could beat Dash, without Dash even seeing him or having any ability to hit back.

It was daunting. Danny didn't know what he _was_ anymore. He lost his identity the minute he was electrocuted.

It was clear what his parents thought of ghosts. Danny _could_ tell his parents that he was more than just exposed to the ecto-energy, but then his parents would never see him as simply _Danny_ again.

But he _wasn't_ "simply Danny" anymore. He'd never be _normal_. There probably wasn't anyone in the _world_ that was like him.

He was alone.

Alone.

Danny sank into his bed while Tucker fell into his chair and Sam laid herself across the foot of Danny's bed.

"Never again. Never again am I asking your parents about ghosts, Danny. It's not worth it," Sam moaned.

"Man, I knew your parents loved ghosts, but they love ghosts more than I love _technology!_ " Tucker groaned.

Danny sighed, bemoaning his existence.

"I have to deal with it _every day_."

Sam and Tucker flinched at the thought of having to deal with that level of boisterousness and instantly felt Danny's pain.

Except they didn't. They _didn't_ understand. They'd _never_ understand. How could they? Danny's parents were the crazies of the town: everyone knew who the Fentons were, and everyone knew to stay away from them.

Danny was extremely lucky when Tucker's parents allowed him to remain friends with Danny. Danny knew that Jazz didn't have many (if any) friends and was prepared for the bullies and the loneliness that he'd encounter once he started school.

When Danny and Tucker met Sam in middle school, Danny recognized Sam's loneliness and knew (from Jazz) what it could do to a person.

Sam was rude to Danny and Tucker when they started sitting with her at lunch, but Danny recognized her rudeness as a defense mechanism (once again, he learned from observing his sister). Sam eventually lowered her walls and it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Danny and Tucker learned how to tell when she was being rude and when she was being sassy.

And so, the "Loser Duo" became the "Loser Trio".

Despite their differences, they _understood_ each other: they knew each other better than anyone. They were _family_.

But now… they wouldn't understand. They couldn't.

Now, Danny would _never_ be normal. The one thing that all teens craved: acceptance.

The realization numbed Danny. What was the point of trying to be normal, to be accepted, if he'd have to hide what he was to be accepted? To not be seen as a _freak?_

Because that's what he was. A freak.

Sam and Tucker left the Fenton's household when the Fentons were about to have dinner.

Dinner was loud; in other words, Jack was rambling about ghosts again. Jazz snuck a book to the table and was it reading it while eating. Maddie had brought her work with her to dinner and was sifting through several papers she had managed to obtain from a hospital in Wisconsin (Danny didn't really care at that point). The entire family was distracted enough to not notice Danny's sullen mood.

Jazz figured that Danny had reached the bargaining point in the five stages of grief, she just didn't know _what_ he was bargaining. Or what he was _grieving_ for. What he was _going through_. It frustrated Jazz to no end because if she didn't know what _caused_ whatever Danny was going through, she couldn't help him _recover_ from it.

All Jazz knew was that it had something to do with their parents' portal.

If Jazz hadn't decided to bring her book to dinner, she would have noticed Danny's slight, but noticeable, change of mood.

And she would have realized that Danny was no longer in bargaining, but was beginning to enter depression.

Danny wasn't really eating. He pushed his food around, stared into space, made little sighs. His cheek rested on his left fist, pushing the chub in his cheeks up towards his eye.

For the remaining weekend (and throughout the next week), Danny was just… numb. He couldn't _feel_. It was as if something had turned the tap in his brain off that let emotions through.

He was empty.

* * *

Jazz noticed two days after Danny fought the two ghosts that came through the portal.

"Danny?" she knocked on Danny's door. "Danny, are you alright?"

 _No, you're not alright,_ Jazz thought. _Something's happened to make you go through the stages of grief: what are you grieving?_

 _Please, let me_ _ **help**_ _you._

"I'm _fine_ , Jazz. What do you want?" Danny's voice muffled in through the door. It was a Sunday, and Danny was enjoying his last day of freedom before the week started up again by doing absolutely nothing.

"Can I come in?"

"… Fine…" Danny moaned. Jazz slowly turned the door knob and pushed the door open just enough to peek her head in and see Danny lying in his bed on his stomach. The right side of his face rested on a pillow, exposing half of Danny's facial expressions (or lack thereof) to Jazz.

When Danny didn't move, Jazz allowed herself to step into his room and close the door behind her. Danny didn't say anything: he was waiting for Jazz to say whatever she had come to say.

Jazz quietly cleared her throat, before asking,

"What's bothering you?"

"I told you, Jazz, I'm _fine_ ," Danny growled.

"No, you're not, Danny," Jazz countered. "I know something's happening. Or happened. A person doesn't just randomly go through the stages of grief for no reason. I want to _help_ you."

Jazz continued to stare pleadingly at her younger brother, who refused to move.

"Just leave me alone," Danny muttered before closing his eyes. He was so _tired_ , but he couldn't sleep. He was physically and emotionally _exhausted_.

He didn't want to think about feelings. It would only remind him how he couldn't currently _feel_ emotions. He just wanted to _sleep._

Jazz knew she couldn't get through Danny when he was in his depressed state. It was something that she encountered personally very often: she knew the empty feeling all too well.

So long as Danny didn't get any suicidal thoughts, he should be fine. Eventually. There was nothing she could do for him. Not until he was willing to listen to her.

"Ok," Jazz whispered, turning to leave the room. It deeply saddened her to know what exactly her little brother was going through, but not be able to help him through that pain. She gently closed his door behind her and walked into her room, taking in her desk and bookshelves filled with tomes on the mind.

 _There has to be something I can do_ , Jazz determined. She walked up to her bookshelf on disorders and pulled out a heavy textbook on Depression and Anxiety. She looked up to another bookshelf on teenage and child psychology and pulled a couple of books out of there. She carefully dumped the books on her bed and retrieved her notebook and pen from her desk before settling in on her bed and opening a book, chewing on the back of the pen as she did so.

 **A/N Stress levels are high and paper was turned in and exams tomorrow: life is absolutely _wonderful_. Thank you for reading (and reviewing ^.^ ) :) Writing is a lovely stress reliever.**


	14. Chapter 14

The thing about mental disorders, like depression or anxiety, is that the people who _have_ them don't want other people _knowing_ they have them.

Even if those other people are your best friends.

There's a difference between feeling sad and feeling _nothing_.

Danny did not know that there was a difference. He merely thought that he was feeling blue (everybody gets the blues, sometimes) and that he was feeling it _constantly_ for the past week and a half.

Well, it was almost two weeks.

Sam and Tucker both knew that something else had changed within the roller coaster of Danny's emotions, but Danny refused to talk about it.

But Danny was also a lot more tired. He used to have more chub in his face and arms, but within those almost two weeks, they melted away to the point where Danny was _extremely_ skinny. He was practically skin and bones.

Danny thought he was going through a growth spurt, but he didn't get taller. (He still had baby cheeks, though. Even when the rest of his baby fat disappeared, his cheeks were still being pinched by his mother.)

Danny had little to no appetite. Sam and Tucker were very concerned when Danny stopped eating lunch and just sat and waited for Sam and Tucker to finish theirs.

Hanging out with his friends no longer gave him joy. They still worked on training his powers, but while Sam and Tucker tried their best to comfort Danny or cheer him on, he never felt accomplished at being able to control his abilities because he _still_ couldn't stop himself from accidentally using his powers without meaning to.

Whenever Danny was by himself (homework and chores all finished), he mostly did nothing. He laid in his bed and did nothing. He thought of nothing. He just _was_.

Jazz would come in and rub Danny's back. She either said nothing or talked about what happened to her that day that was funny or embarrassing. Danny didn't react at first, but after a couple of days, he started smiling just a little.

By the fourth Sunday after Danny's accident, Danny had start feeling emotions once again. He could smile, laugh, cry, etc., and Danny was relieved that he didn't feel _empty_ anymore.

Looking back at the past month, Danny finally realized and accepted the bitter truth: he was different, he'd never be "normal", but, most importantly, his friends and family cared for him.

* * *

It was a Monday morning. Danny was loudly chewing on some cereal while Maddie welded some invention on the kitchen table. Jazz tried her best to hide her face from the sparks with her book, "Surviving Adolescence Through Therapy".

Jazz was very angry at her parents. They never thought that there was something wrong, even when Danny was showing _obvious_ signs of extreme anger and depression!

But they never realized that she had had clinical depression, either. Jazz knew she suffered from major depressive disorder because of her studies in psychology and knew how to prevent her depression from affecting the people around her (and how to prevent herself from going too deep) but she still spent several months every year feeling empty, exhausted, and suicidal.

In other words, she knew how to hide her depression. It didn't stop her from being mad at her parents for not noticing.

And now, they weren't noticing Danny. Jazz had already read "Surviving Adolescence Through Therapy" three times, but she wasn't reading it for herself now: she was reading it to help Danny. And Spike, her current project, but Danny wasn't self-harming himself the way Spike was. Not yet, at least.

Jazz pushed aside the thought of Danny hurting himself. She kept a mental note to watch out for it, though.

Maddie suddenly spoke up.

"OK, two more days, and it's done!" she exclaimed happily.

"What did you say?" Jack bounded into the kitchen and behind Maddie, grabbing the strange looking object and lifting it into the air Simba style. "It's done? The Fenton Finder is DONE!"

"This baby uses satellites to lead you right to the ghosts!" he continued.

"It uses _what_ to track _what?!"_ Danny asked quietly, horrified. Nobody heard him, though, because the Fenton Finder decided to speak up at that moment.

"Welcome to the Fenton Finder. A ghost is near: walk forward."

Danny looked at the object in fear while Jazz lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. Jack and Maddie both were interested in seeing a _ghost_ for the first time.

Danny walked backwards and accidentally trapped himself against the kitchen wall while Jack and Maddie walked forward until they were right in front of Danny.

"Ghost located. Thank you for using the Fenton Finder."

Danny grinned sheepishly at his parents when Jack boomed.

"What? That can't be right," Jack looked to Maddie for an explanation. She shrugged her shoulders at him.

 _This is the perfect opportunity to tell them! They'll understand, right?_

Danny mentally chanted that his parents would understand as he spoke up.

"Actually… I need to tell you guys something…" Danny moaned. Both Danny's parents looked at Danny with curiosity in their eyes (Maddie's hood and googles were on, but she was looking at Danny curiously).

"That's not _all_ you need, Danny," Jazz spoke up, sending a glare at her parents' backs. She was tired of them not noticing the fact that their obsession with ghosts was tearing the family apart. She pushed her parents aside.

"You need guidance! And _parents_ who can provide it!" Her eyes flashed daggers at Jack and Maddie.

"Sweetie, I know what we do doesn't make sense sometimes, but you're only-" Maddie started out (rather condescendingly).

"Sixteen," Jazz interrupted her mother (highly frustrated). "Biologically! But _psychologically_ , I'm an adult! And I will _not_ allow your insane obsession with ghosts pollute the mind of an impressionable child!"

Jazz was _done_. She was _done_ being treated like a child, she was _done_ not being listened to, and she was _done_ with her parents obsessive behavior.

Danny was trying to sneak away from Jazz, but she grabbed a hold of him while glaring at her parents and forced him into a hug.

"Come, you poor, abused wretch! I'll drive to you to school." Jazz's eyes flashed coldly at her parents as she led her younger brother away from their oblivious parents. She had driven Danny to school for the past week because his depression always prevented him from getting out of bed in time for the bus. Their parents had not noticed, they were always down in the lab or discussion new prototypes in the kitchen during breakfast.

Danny was pleased, but then not so pleased when Jazz (unknowingly) prevented him from telling his parents about what had _truly_ happened a month before.

The trip to school was awkward and silent. Jazz was fuming under her breath, quietly ranting to herself.

When Danny found his friends in the halls, he told them about what had happened earlier that morning.

"I think I should tell them," Danny ended his tale.

"Why? Parents don't listen! Even _worse_ , they don't understand!" Sam said. "WHY WON'T THEY ACCEPT ME FOR WHO I AM?!"

Sam had had a bad weekend. Her parents had tried to throw away _all_ of her clothes and replace them with what they deemed "appropriate". They were successful, too, until Sam caught them when she had dropped by to pick something up for a later activity with Danny and Tucker.

Sam lost more than half of her clothes in two hours.

The resulting argument was awful, leaving Sam in a terrible mood that Monday morning trying to choose her clothes for the day.

The only thing keeping her from murdering everyone was the fact that this was her week: Ultra Recycle-Vegetarian week.

"Sam," Danny knocked Sam back to the present. "I'm talking my powers: my problems?"

"Oh, right," Sam looked sheepish. "Me… too."

"It's been a _month_ since the accident and I still barely have _any_ control!" Danny reminded his friends, crossing his arms. "If someone catches me, I go from _geek_ to _**freak**_ around here!" Danny was slowly falling through the floor as he was speaking.

"Kind of like what you're doing now?" Tucker pointed out to Danny.

Danny suddenly realized that he was only half the height of Tucker and Sam, looked down and saw that all of his legs had disappeared through the floor.

"Gah!"

Sam and Tucker quickly grabbed Danny's arms and lifted him out of the floor and Danny turned himself tangible.

"Darn it! If my dad can invent something that accidentally made me half-ghost, why can't he invent something to turn me back to _normal?_ " Danny turned intangible and invisible and walked through a snacks vender.

 _I will never be normal again._

"Danny, your powers make you unique. Unique is good!" Sam tried to comfort him as she caught up to where he was standing. "That's why I'm an Ultra Recycle-Vegetarian!" She places her knuckles on her hips and stood proudly at that fact.

Danny sighed as Sam brought up her strange eating habits again and Tucker asked about it _again._

"Which means _what?"_

"She doesn't eat anything with a face on it."

"Oh, who cares about that stuff. Danny, two words. Meat Connoisseur." Tucker said with a thumb pointing at himself. He sniffed the area around Danny's face and neck. "Last night, you had Sloppy Joes."

"Impressive." Danny knew Tucker for basically a decade, but he had _no_ clue that his friend could do that.

"Meat heightens the senses, and my all-meat streak is 14 years strong!" Tucker said proudly.

Danny _did_ know _that_. Once Tucker was weaned off his mother's milk, he refused to eat anything vegetable and only ate meat.

"Aaand, it's about to _end_." Sam said smugly. "The school board finally agreed to try a new cafeteria menu!" Sam sighed happily. "I wore them down."

"Wait… What did you do?" Tucker's eyes widened at the thought of _Sam_ overseeing the _cafeteria menu_.

Sam just smirked and walked to class.

When lunchtime finally came, the first thing Danny and Tucker noticed was the ginormous sign saying,

' **This Week: Ultra Recycle-Vegetarian'**

Danny and Tucker were looking apprehensively at the food all of the students in the cafeteria were not wanting to eat.

When Danny received his lunch, the first word that popped into his head was 'grass'.

"What is this? _Grass on a bun?"_

Ironically, the dish was called 'Cress on Bread'.

" _What have you_ _ **done**_ _?"_ Tucker cried out at Sam dramatically.

"Tucker, it's time for a change," she smiled, lifting her cress-covered piece of bread.

They sat at their table, Sam happily digging into her meal while Danny and Tucker warily eyed the "food".

"Don't you think this is a _little_ extreme, Sam?" Danny asked. Before Sam could reply, she was interrupted by Mr. Lancer, who had placed a large hand on her shoulder.

"Ahh, Ms. Manson. The school board wanted me to _personally_ thank you for ushering this _welcome_ experiment into our cafeteria."

If one listened very closely, they could hear Mr. Lancer's sarcasm. Sam did not, she sat proudly at the thanks from the school board for being an individual.

Tucker sniffed suspiciously, then glanced at Mr. Lancer.

"Meat. Near!" He sniffed closer to Mr. Lancer, who immediately backed away and said,

"No, no, the rumors about the new All-Steak Buffet in the Teacher's Lounge are _completely_ untrue," Mr. Lancer grinned as he stuck a wooden toothpick into his mouth.

"Thanks again," he said to Sam before walking away.

"Yeah," Tucker snorted sarcastically. "Thanks again for making us eat _garbage, Sam!"_

"It's not garbage! It's recyclable organic matter!" She defended condescendingly.

"It's garbage!" Danny and Tucker said together. Sam crossed her arms and sunk into her chair a little.

Danny was trying to convince himself to eat the 'garbage' that he and Tucker had so named when all of a sudden, the cold feeling Danny recognized from two weeks before came back, showing its existence through Danny's breath.

"Uh, guys? I've… got a problem," Danny whispered.

" _ **Fentoooon!"**_

Danny winced as something muddy hit the back of his head.

"Make that two problems," he muttered as he turned around and saw Dash Baxter storming up to them, a plate of mud pies in his hand.

"I ordered three mud pies! You want to know what they gave me? Three _mud_ pies! With _mud!_ _ **From the ground!**_ And it's all because of your _girlfriend!"_ Dash ranted.

"She's not my girlfriend!" Danny defended himself at the same time Sam said,

"I'm not his girlfriend!"

Dash ignored them and ripped Danny up from his seat by holding Danny's t-shirt to bring him closer to Dash's eye level.

"These are the best years of my life! After this, it's all downhill for me! How am I supposed to enjoy my glory days _eating mud!_ "

"Actually, it's topsoil," Sam said, unimpressed.

Dash didn't care and threw Danny back to his seat.

"Whatever!"

The blonde loomed over Danny.

"Eat it. _All of it."_

The mud pies were worse than the grass on a bun.

Danny opened his mouth to start eating the disgusting looking "pies" when the cold feeling came back again. His eyes snapped open and just behind Dash, in the kitchen, was a green being that floated just out of sight.

"Um… Uhh…" Danny frantically thought of a way to get out of there quickly and take care of the ghost.

"GARBAGE FIGHT!" He lifted the plate of mud and threw it directly at Dash's face. It struck dead on.

All of the kids in the cafeteria reacted immediately. Within two seconds, the entire cafeteria was a mess of mud, cress, and other foods that were less than desirable. Except for Sam.

Sam stood up from her seat and yelled,

"It's not GARBAGE, IT'S-"

She was interrupted by being pulled down underneath the table by Danny. She knew from Danny's face that there was a reason why he started the fight as he started crawling towards the kitchen.

"You're gonna pay for this, Fenton!" Dash yelled before being hit on both sides with mud and other items of 'food'.

 _Oh great, I'm still his favorite._

The trio crawled away from the fighting and inched the door to the kitchen open.

Danny and Tucker saw an old looking female ghost floating an inch or so above the floor. The ghost was see-through and dumpy, wearing an apron and pink dress with a confused look on her face.

"Huh, she shouldn't be so bad. She looks a little bit like my grandmother," Tucker commented.

"Shouldn't she be haunting a _bingo hall?_ " Danny commented sarcastically as Sam entered the room and closed the door. That was when the ghost caught sight of them.

"Hello, children, can you help me?" The ghost's voice echoed eerily, but her voice was old and sweet.

"Today's lunch is meatloaf, but I don't _see_ the meatloaf. Did someone change the menu?"

"Yeah," Tucker answered, still annoyed at Sam. He jerked his thumb towards her. "She did."

The ghost's change was instant. Her white hair flamed, her red eyes widened and seemed flare up, and her teeth sharpened into fangs. Her entire aura shifted from white to flaming green.

"You _changed the menu?"_ Her voice echoed darkly as the room's temperature dropped. Sam, Tucker and Danny all gasped in alarm.

" _The menu has been the same for over_ _ **fifty years!**_ _"_ The ghost roared. She seemed to grow in size and lifted her arms up as if she was about to attack (which she was). Wind from out of nowhere picked up and swirled around the ghost. (Nobody changed _her_ _menu!)_

"Get behind me!" Danny told his friends, which they immediately obeyed. Sam eyed Danny's twiggy arms.

"Wow. I feel safe," she muttered sarcastically.

"I'm GOING GHOST!" Danny lifted his arms into the air and concentrated all his might on thinking,

 _ **I am a ghost!**_

The bright light that signified Danny's change flashed and suddenly, Danny was in his ghost form, toxic green eyes determined to stop this lunch lady ghost. Danny leapt up to the ghost and then… had no idea what to do.

"I… command you…" he pointed at the ghost, unsure of his actions, then tried to sound authoritative, "to GO AWAY!"

It was weak and he knew it.

The ghost knew it, too, because she simply threw out her hand and commanded the plates on the counter to attack Danny.

Danny saw it coming and focused on being intangible with all his might. The plates flew right through him and crashed into the wall behind him.

 _It worked! I'm alive!_

The ghost decided to attack Danny's friends instead. Sam and Tucker both stared at the plates approaching them, frozen in fear or trying their best to protect themselves from as little damage as possible.

Danny quickly flew over to Sam, then Tucker, subconsciously taking over the command of the plates and other dining materials and stacking them in a huge pile in his arms. As he flew back over to the kitchen counter, a thought popped into his mind.

 _Well, if this superhero thing doesn't work out, I could have an exciting career as a busboy._

The stoves on the other side of the room started jumping up and down as the Lunch Lady ghost calmed down enough to screech,

"I control lunch! Lunch is SACRED! Lunch has RULES!"

The Lunch Lady ghost was apparently bipolar when she was alive, because in that instant, she was calm and sweet, and asked if they wanted cake (holding up a ghostly piece of cake).

Tucker and Sam quickly nodded, hoping that it would calm the ghost down.

She did not.

Scary Lunch Lady ghost was back.

"TOO BAD! Children who change MY menu DO NOT _GET_ DESSERT!"

She flew through the ceiling, leaving the ovens with a green ghostly fire directed right at Sam, Tucker, and Danny. Danny avoided a spout of green ghost fire before flying over to Sam and Tucker, grabbing them both and focusing his intangibility on them before flying through the wall to escape the avenging ovens.

The three tumbled through the wall and into the hallway behind the cafeteria.

"Hey!" Danny shouted ecstatically. "It worked!"

" _This_ is the thanks I get for thinking like an _individual?!"_ Sam shouted, throwing her hands up into the air in frustration.

Suddenly, the earth quaked and the lights went out. The lockers surrounding the three teens burst open as papers and books flew out towards the Lunch Lady ghost.

Tucker perked up as he smelled meat.

"It's the whole porterhouse!" He exclaimed.

The meat attached itself to the Lunch Lady ghost, transforming her into a meat monster.

"But where is it all coming from?" Tucker wondered. "Lancer!" he turned with a conspiring look on his face before a piece of paper blew into him.

Danny and Sam ignored Tucker's dramatics trying to determine what they should do next.

The meat monster ghost did it for them.

"PREPARE TO LEARN WHY _MEAT_ IS THE _MOST_ _ **POWERFUL**_ OF THE FIVE FOOD GROUPS!" the ghost roared, pointing a meaty finger directly at Sam.

"Cookie?" the ghost asked, reverting back to old grandmotherly once again.

Sam shook her head no, which enraged the ghost.

" _THEN_ _ **PERISH!**_ _"_

"FORGET IT!" Danny slid protectively in front of Sam. "The only thing around here that has an _expiration date_ is _**you!**_ _"_

Danny raised his arm, showing his fist, when suddenly, Danny felt something within him change. He saw his glove fade away back into flesh and watched as he accidentally transformed into his human form.

"Oops.." Danny turned to Sam. "I… didn't mean to do that."

The Meat Lunch Lady roared as she grabbed Danny and flung him into Tucker, knocking the breath out of the two boys temporarily, giving the ghost enough time to kidnap Sam and fly away.

"Come on, change back! We got to go!" Tucker cried as Danny regained his breath.

"YOU TWO-" Tucker and Danny's shirts' collars were grabbed by Mr. Lancer. "aren't _going_ _anywhere_."

"Told you you'd pay, Fenton!" Dash stood beside Mr. Lancer, covered in food from head to toe.

Mr. Lancer dragged Danny and Tucker into his office. Dash quickly placed two chairs out in the middle room directly facing Mr. Lancer's desk. Danny and Tucker sat down as Mr. Lancer went to a file cabinet and quickly picked out the "F" file for the freshmen class.

"Tucker Foley: chronic tardiness, talking in class, repeated loitering by the girls' locker room"

Tucker smirked.

"Danny Fenton: 34 dropped beakers in the last month, banned for life from handling all fragile school property, but no severe mischief before today, so, _gentlemen…"_ Mr. Lancer slammed the file down on his desk before continuing, "tell me…"

"WHY DID THE TWO YOU CONSPIRE TO DESTROY THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA?!"

Both Tucker and Danny leaned back as far as they could from Mr. Lancer's accusative gaze.

"Dash started it! He threw-" Danny tried to defend himself.

"Four touchdown passes in the last game and is thereby exempt from scorn," Mr. Lancer interrupted Danny. "You two, however, are not. I'll map out your punishment when I return." The portly teacher walked to the door. "Mr. Baxter, watch the door."

Dash smirked at Danny and Tucker (even though he was still covered in garbage food) before slamming the door shut behind him.

"We've got to find Sam! For some reason, I feel like… I got her kidnapped," Tucker guiltily said immediately as he and Danny stood up.

"Maybe because you told the _ghost_ she _changed the menu?_ How about _that?"_ Danny replied irritably.

Tucker's sense of smell was apparently a super power, because Tucker said,

"That steak is still in the building! 200 yards, tops!"

Danny walked towards the screens that showed the security cameras around the school.

"Check it out," he told Tucker, pointing to a screen. " _Meat_ trail."

Danny focused on transforming back into his ghost before grabbing Tucker, turning them both intangible and diving through the floor. Tucker let out a small squawk in surprise as they passed through.

Danny traveled around intangibly with Tucker in his arm until they found the meat trail and followed it to the kitchen's enormous meat locker.

Tucker was in heaven.

"Sweet mother of mutton! I've dreamed of it, but-" Tucker ran to a cart of meat and hugged it the best he could. "-I never thought I'd live to _see_ it!" He sighed happily.

"How is it," Danny walked up to Tucker, "that _I'm_ the one with the ghost powers and _you're_ the _weird kid?"_

Tucker never answered (but the answer is that Tucker did theater when he was in elementary), because at that moment, they heard a witch-like cackle.

They turned towards and looked around the corner to see Sam stuck in a pile of meat while the ghost tried to force her to eat said meat.

"We don't _need_ meat! That's fact!" she retorted.

The ghost grew frustrated at Sam and growled as she shouted,

"SILENCE! You need _discipline, MANNERS,_ _ **RESPECT!**_ You want to know where that _comes from?_ _ **MEAT!**_ _"_

And then she was back to grandmotherly ghost.

"Chicken or fish?"

Danny turned to Tucker and created a (simple) plan.

"I'll take care of the ghost, you find a way to get Sam out of that pile of meat!"

"Waaaayyyy ahead of you," Tucker deadpanned.

The two turned the corner and ran/flew towards Sam and the ghost.

Danny had the advantage of surprise and was thereby successful in punching the ghost away from Sam. He landed in a crouch, hopefully in an intimidating look (he looked awesome, nobody can deny it).

Tucker reached Sam and exclaimed,

"I'll have you free in no time, Sam!"

Tucker was taking his time cutting away a piece of meat.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Danny tried to continue his attack by leaping dramatically into the air and aiming a kick at the ghost's face when the Lunch Lady ghost grabbed Danny's ankle, clearly not impressed.

"Don't you see? This is why you need meat! You're skin and _bones!"_ she exclaimed as she threw Danny to the other side of the room. Danny yelped and focused on turning intangible. He flew halfway through a wall before he came to a stop. The Lunch Lady ghost then controlled some shish kebabs and threw them towards Danny, who's ghostly body instinctively separated at the waist and twisted and turned to avoid the kebabs.

 _I'm still alive!_

Angry and frustrated, the Lunch Lady quickly commanded all of the meat in the room to converge where she was, quickly and effectively transforming the ghost into a large meat monster, three times the size she was the first time.

As Danny reconnected his body, the newly formed meat monster extended her arm and grabbed Danny.

Tucker quickly called out,

"Help's on the way, buddy!"

The ghost threw Danny, who yelled and turned intangible instinctively before impact, allowing him to safely fly through the wall.

"Run?" Tucker asked Sam as the meat monster roared at them.

"Run." She replied.

The two ran as fast as they could away from the ghost, screaming all the way, while the ghost simple took a couple of steps and threw a fist towards the exit (which was where Sam and Tucker were running to). It effectively cut off their escape. They quickly ran in a different direction as the ghost transformed its legs into a tail, making it slither instead of run towards the two human teenagers. Danny, as soon as he saw what was happening when coming back into the room intangibly, flew towards his friends and grabbed them, which doubled the pace that they were running in (because now they were flying). Danny flew towards a wall and turned all three intangible, which surprised the meat Lunch Lady ghost as she rammed against it.

The three appeared outside the school (but school had long since ended, therefore, no one saw them), Danny's face a picture of pure exhaustion, which Sam immediately noticed.

"Gee, Danny, fighting meat monsters, flying through walls, you must be _exhausted_."

"What? Of course not, what would give you… that idea…" Danny fell unconscious as they were flying and the three fell a few feet to the ground, tumbling as they did so. As soon as they were firmly on the ground, the light flashed around Danny again and he transformed back into his human self.

* * *

As soon as Jazz walked in the door, she knew something was off.

"Mom? Dad?" She took a few steps forward when the door suddenly shut itself and a smoke bomb was tossed in where Jazz was standing.

"Now, Maddie, hit her! I'm moving in!" Jack yelled as Jazz screamed. As soon as the smoke cleared, Jack and Maddie saw that the only thing the Fenton X-tractor did was pull at Jazz's hair (they had become convinced that morning that, since Jazz had offered Danny a ride to school, Jazz must have been a ghost, and they spent all day trying to find a way to get the ghost out of Jazz without hurting her). They quickly removed their hands from her ankles as Jazz glared at her parents. She stomped away, muttering,

"This is _all_ going in the memoir."

As Jack and Maddie stood up, Sam opened the front door carrying Danny's feet while Tucker carried his arms.

"Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton!" Tucker said awkwardly with a fake smile on his face. "What a school day! Poor Danny nodded off. We figured we'd carry him all the way home and tuck him into bed without any parental interaction whatsoever."

"Don't get up! We know where to go. Bye!" Sam called as they struggled up the stairs, Jack looking suspiciously at the three teens.

Maddie knew the look on Jack's face.

"Jack, Danny is _not_ a ghost!" Maddie groaned. She had proof, too. The hospital records she'd looked up on Vlad's case of ecto-acne said that if they didn't show any signs of the acne or ghost-like properties (which Vlad eventually got rid of), the person was fine. Maddie had the samples to prove it, Danny's blood was normal, even though they had a bit of ectoplasm in them at first, the ectoplasmic energy eventually disappeared, leaving Maddie with the conclusion that as long as Danny didn't develop the acne or ghost-like powers, he was fine and _not_ a ghost. His system would eventually cleanse Danny's body from all traces of ectoplasm.

"You're right!" Jack agreed, eyes narrowing. " _Jazz is."_

* * *

When Sam and Tucker dumped Danny on his bed, they sighed in sync and collapsed on the floor.

Sam sneaked a smirk at Tucker.

"Seriously? That was the best you could come up with?"

"Better than anything _you_ could have come up with! I am a _way_ better actor than you!"

"I bet you aren't." Sam grinned evilly.

"Oh, I will TAKE your bet! What do I need to do?"

Sam tapped her fingers against the carpet as she thought.

 _The only person other than me who would know Tucker well enough would be Danny…_

"I want you to tell Danny that he's been asleep for days when he wakes up. If he believes you, you win."

Tucker smirked evilly at Sam.

 _Oh, I am_ _ **so**_ _going to win this._ Both friends thought at the same time.

Danny didn't stir for another hour or so. Sam and Tucker had no homework to do because they left their school supplies at… school.

Danny shifted a little in his sleep, giving Sam and Tucker enough time to position themselves next to Danny. Tucker was the closest, instantly putting on a face of concern.

As soon as Danny opened his eyes, he was wide awake.

"Wha- What's going on?!"

"You passed out- we took you home!" Tucker was the picture of best friend concern. His voiced notched a pitch higher as he continued.

"You've been asleep for _four days!_ "

Danny believed it. It was obvious in the way he immediately shot up and screeched,

"FOUR _DAYS?!"_

 _I win!_ Tucker mentally cheered. He chuckled.

"Nah, it's only been a couple of hours."

Sam was not as happy to discover the winner of their little bet. She growled.

"Knock it off, _Tucker!"_ To draw Tucker's attention away from the bet, she decided to change the subject that was on both their minds.

"This is the _second_ time today that your carelessness almost got him _killed_!"

"Me?! _I_ almost got him killed?" Tucker stuck his thumb towards himself in a show of extreme disbelief and sarcasm. "The only reason this happened is because _you_ had to be unique. You had to take the _meat_ away!"

Sam turned away, folding her arms and sticking her nose in the air as she ignored Tucker's accusations.

"And _I'm_ going to get it back!" Tucker stomped towards the exit.

That made Sam snap.

" _You want to change that menu back? YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH_ _ **ME**_ _TO DO IT!"_ She shouted at Tucker as he left, stomping after him and slamming Danny's door shut.

Danny sat up in his bed, dazed at the display his friends had before him.

But he was used to them being like this every now and then. Just not as extreme.

"Eh, well, I'm sure everything will be back to normal by tomorrow," Danny said to himself, hoping to reassure the cold feeling that it wouldn't.

When dinner came around, Danny was surprised to learn that his parents had attacked Jazz when she came home. Jazz had come downstairs, grabbed her plate of food, and stormed back upstairs without saying a word to their parents.

"That ghost better not be hurting our Jazzy-pants!" Jack wailed.

Danny was completely confuzzled.

"Wait, what ghost? What are we talking about?" he asked.

Maddie sighed before turning to Danny.

"Jack thinks that Jazz has been overshadowed, or possessed, by a ghost and won't leave her body," Maddie explained.

"I don't think, I know! And we can't hurt the ghost because if we hurt the ghost, we hurt Jazz!"

"Wait, what happened? What did I miss?" Danny questioned.

"Jack and I have been working on the Fenton X-tractor today, it's supposed to suck ghosts out of overshadowed people or ghosts in general, but we haven't worked out the kinks yet. Jack tried to suck the ghost he thinks is in Jazz out, but either the X-tractor is still a vacuum cleaner or there's no ghost in Jazz." Maddie turned her head to direct a pointed glare at Jack.

"We have to keep our family safe, Maddie! From ghosts!" Jack boomed before taking a rather large bite out of his mashed potatoes.

Danny's eyes were wide open.

 _What would they do with me if they thought my ghost half wasn't me, but a ghost taking over my body? WAIT, if the ghost isn't me, then what is it? And what if it is me, Sam and Tucker have been joking about my ghost half, but what if I'm a ghost that can mimic being a human? Wait, what? Now I'm just confusing myself…_

Jack and Maddie continued discussing whether or Jazz was a ghost and, if she was, how to get the ghost out of her without hurting her, while Danny went through another mental debate over what the portal did to him.

Either way, Danny determined that it might be better for his safety if his parents didn't know about his ghost half.

* * *

Danny went into the kids' bathroom and locked the door behind him. He was going to have a proper look at his ghost half, even if it made him uncomfortable. Just to be safe, Danny took a towel and placed it up against the crack at the bottom of the door.

Satisfied that the flash of light wouldn't draw attention from his family if they happened to be passing by, Danny focused on the cold feeling he had grown used to at his core and felt the cold rush through his entire body. He watched himself in the mirror, watched his shirt and jeans melt into the black and white skintight HAZMAT suit, observed how his skin flaked away as the HAZMAT suit appeared underneath it, and watched his hair brighten until it was a blinding white. He experimented with the white aura that surrounded his body, played with it, made it flare around his fingertips.

Danny didn't know how he knew how to do it. It seemed natural.

Danny turned his focus away from the suit to his face. His face _seemed_ the same, but it was different. He noticed that his pores were much smaller than before, on his human body. Danny leaned closer to the mirror to look at his green irises.

His eyes _glowed_. He knew that his eyes somehow sometimes glowed when in human form, but in his ghost form it was blaringly obvious that he wasn't human, even though he was humanoid. Danny leaned closer.

To his horror, his irises swirled around his pupil the same way the _portal_ swirled. Within the toxic green were flecks of black and dark purple that reminded Danny way too much of the portal in the lab beneath him that he had to blink and look away.

He moved on to his hair. It was soft, like his human hair, but it wasn't as coarse.

Which is saying a lot, because Danny had very fine (fine in both ways, it was nice, but the strands were thin), but thick hair. Jazz had fine, but thick hair too. It was why she didn't do much with it but wear a hair band because her hair was too heavy to do anything with it. It never stayed up, or curled, or whatever she experimented on it because the strands were too fine to stay curled and the hair was too heavy to stay up.

If Danny had longer hair, he would know the struggles. He had different hair struggles. The hair moved wherever the wind blew, so even if brushing or combing his hair was easy, it would always be messy unless he used an insane amount of hair gel.

Both had the problems of people messing with their hair or "complimenting" it.

So saying that Danny's hair in ghost form was even finer was saying something. Danny just knew that his hair in ghost form would flow with the wind because it was flowing with the AC unit in the bathroom as he stood observing it. Danny himself could barely feel the AC, or even hear it, but his hair could. It moved slowly, rippled, like flowers in a meadow, or seaweed gently flowing in water. It was cool, but still a bit creepy, so Danny stopped looking at his hair, too.

Unable to meet his own gaze, Danny looked down at his suit once again.

 _Can I even take it off?_

Danny frowned at the thought before tugging at the glove on his left hand. The hand that had pressed against the wall as he tripped.

 _There was a button on the wall… I pressed it…_

Danny stopped tugging at the glove on his left hand, pulled it back and tugged on the glove on his right hand. It came off easily and Danny was relieved to see that his hand was practically the same in both forms. Like his ghostly face, his hand's pores were smaller and less noticeable, but the tiny scar he had foolishly gotten as a child playing with a small knife that had somehow gotten on the floor in the kitchen was still there on his thumb.

Danny was amazed to see that he still had veins: they were just green instead of slight blue.

Curiosity overcame Danny. He looked around the bathroom for something that would make a small cut, a needle, anything: there was nothing.

He picked up the box of floss and hummed.

He quickly opened the box and pulled out a long strand of the minty string before cutting it off. He wound the floss around his fingers and forcibly shoved the floss in between two of his teeth.

Liquid fled from his gums and Danny quickly spat it out into the sink.

His blood was a bright, toxic green.

Horrified, Danny backed into the wall facing the mirror and slid down, brushing his right hand through his hair and clenching at his roots.

He was done being a ghost. He needed to be human again.

Without even having to focus, the white light returned and human Danny was back. (The right glove in his left hand disappeared with the light).

His gums were still bleeding.

Danny was afraid to see if his blood was still green, but he had to know. Danny spat into his palm and saw that his blood was red with just a little bit of green left from his ghost form.

(Danny should have remembered that his mother took blood samples a month earlier, but he was afraid: people don't think clearly when they're afraid.)

He sighed in relief, shoulders relaxing from the tense anticipation that had been rising a few seconds before. Danny stood to rinse his blood from his hands. He cleaned the sink from his leftover ectoplasmic-looking blood from earlier and removed the towel from the floor, dumping it into the laundry basket. He unlocked the door and hurried to his bedroom, quickly throwing off his shirt and jeans and collapsing into his bed with just his boxers on.

Danny's dreams were filled with green blood and ectoplasmic eyes staring emptily towards him.

 **A/N Long chapter, I have discovered a hatred of transposing from the episodes because it takes _forever_. I feel for Jazz with her hair because we share the same hair problems (even the curling at the end). I'm assuming that both Jazz and Danny have fine thick hair. I get it isn't the worst out there, but people do automatically assume that we have _no_ hair problems. **

**After observing Tucker for a couple of episodes, I am convinced that he has some theater kid experience because the only people I know that act like Tucker are people who do drama. Tucker is a completely average drama kid, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.**

 **Jazz has major depressive disorder! It comes and goes. I honestly see so much of Jazz in myself, we both like psychology, we both have a younger brother that's about 2 years younger than ourselves (and we're both pretty protective over him [and his name happens to be _very_ similar to Danny's]), we both love reading, etc. etc. etc., ... my brother's going to kill me for mentioning him XD **

**Anybody else who sees a character and realizes: oh my freaking goodness heck, that character is _so_ me? I'd love to hear it :) **

**This fiction might get darker. Not sure yet. The show always had the potential to become a whole lot darker than it was, I might just draw into that (probably will. Nah, it definitely will. It's inevitable). If you feel like the fiction has passed from K+ to T, let me know.**


	15. Chapter 15

Danny's morning was not going well, again. His parents were utterly convinced (well, Jack was) that Jazz was a ghost. Jazz had left the house early to meet with her project, Spike, before classes started at school and ate breakfast about half an hour before the rest of the family even woke up. She left a note, explaining where she was to whoever cared to read it (and also warning her parents to leave her be because she is _not_ a _ghost_ ), and was heard throughout the house as she slammed the door shut and her car skidded as it drove around the corner.

As a result, Danny's parents worked even harder to find some way to capture the ghost in Jazz.

Which resulted in Danny running out the door late.

 _At least my day can get a bit better once I reach Sam and Tucker-_

Danny's eyes widened as he saw the two enormous protests just in front of the school.

"Or not," he muttered to himself. "Maybe it'll be worse."

Danny had completely forgotten about Sam and Tucker's current disagreement. Danny's jaw was wide open when he heard Tucker's voice echoing through a microphone, saying,

"WHAT DO WE WANT?!"

"MEAT!" the crowd responded.

"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?!"

"NOW!"

And at the same time, Sam was at the other side of the school, leading a group shouting,

"VEGGIES NOW! VEGGIES FOREVER! VEGGIES NOW! VEGGIES FOREVER!"

Almost at the same time, the two friends caught sight of Danny and made their way over to him. The two protests continued on shouting, while a news camera broadcasted the protests to the local station just in front of him.

"You put together two protests in _one_ night?" Danny asked, astounded.

"Meat eaters, Danny! Always ready to fight. And our high-protein diets give us the energy we need to do it quickly!" Tucker glared at Sam.

Sam was quick to retaliate.

"Ultra Recycle-Vegetarians are _always_ ready to protest. And because we don't have to waste time _cooking_ our food, we can move even _faster!_ "

"Don't you think this is a _little_ extreme?" Danny asked both, still amazed that they put together two protests.

His best friends were quick to give him an ultimatum.

"No choice, buddy, you're either with me-" Tucker started.

"Or you're against him!" Sam finished.

"SO WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?!" they both yelled.

At that moment, the wind picked up and an echoing, evil laugh rang throughout the front of the school.

Danny's spine shivered and a cold mist of air burst out of Danny's mouth as he gasped. No one noticed because meat burst from the meat truck sitting on Tucker's side of the protesters and formed itself into a meat monster the size of the school building. The monster roared.

"IT'S _LUNCH TIME!"_

The news crew standing in front of Sam, Danny, and Tucker were filming live as the protesters on both sides panicked, running and screaming away from the enormous meat monster. They quickly abandoned their equipment and ran with the rest of the crowd.

"Guys," Danny quietly gritted his teeth at his friends. "Time to make up-NOW!"

Tucker and Sam realized what Danny was about to do and both hugged their best friend (glaring daggers at the other) while Danny transformed into his ghost form. When they moved away, Danny flew up to meet the ghost.

The ghost that was the size of a building.

Danny ducked and parried the punches the monster was aiming at him. He quickly flew to the other side and kicked the ghost at the back of its head powerfully enough to make it topple over. He could just barely hear Tucker comment, "He really _is_ getting better", before turning back to the ghost too late and being punched miles away. Sam and Tucker looked back at the ghost before quickly hiding underneath a protest banner that had fallen over.

When Danny reached the point where he stopped rising and started falling, he had effectively recovered from the punch and was awake enough to know what to do to destroy the enormous meat monster. He quickly turned himself around and started to fly as fast as he could towards the monster. As soon as he made impact, the ghost practically exploded in a large mess of meat while Danny created an even larger crater from his own impact.

Surprisingly, Danny wasn't as hurt as he thought he would be. Falling from that height would have a 100% chance of killing a normal human, yet Danny was able to climb out of the crater with only a small kink in his shoulder.

"Oh dear, what a mess. Are you OK?" the lunch lady ghost asked Danny as he (tiredly) pulled himself out of the crater he created.

"Yeah, I think so," he answered as he stretched his arm and shoulder.

"Tough!" the ghost yelled. "Because _you_ being OK is _not_ part of my balanced diet of _doom!"_

The ghost controlled the leftover meat intact from Danny's impact and created five mini-meat monsters ready to tear Danny apart.

Danny reacted quickly as the five monsters attacked him and beat them by kicking and punching their bodies to pieces. As soon as he was done, he observed his work proudly before the meat began to reform into the five monsters again, leaving Danny ticked.

"Wasn't expecting that!" Danny suddenly transformed into his human form. "Or that."

It didn't make sense, Danny had to _concentrate_ on the ghost feeling or the human feeling to be able to transform into the other forms.

He had no time to think on it, though, because the five mini-meat monsters took the opportunity to grab Danny and fly high into the air, turning him upside down in the process.

As they were flying, Danny's face was suddenly assaulted by the Fenton Thermos, of all things.

"The Fenton Thermos!" Danny held the thermos away from his face, still flying upside down. "But how am I going to get it to work?"

 _Maybe it needs ecto-energy!_

The mini-meat monsters suddenly let go of Danny, who hurtled speedily towards the ground right where his parents and sister were standing.

 _Change back! Change back!_ Danny urged himself.

Danny's eyes swirled with green ectoplasmic energy and Danny's body withered away instantly in a blinding flash of light, leaving him in his ghost form. He turned intangible quickly, right before hitting the ground, shouting a quick, "THANKS FOR THE THERMOS!" to his family.

Danny flew underground to where he knew the lunch lady ghost was and popped up to face her, the Fenton Thermos firmly held in his right hand.

"No!" The lunch lady ghost cried out. "Soup's not on today's menu!"

"I'm changing the menu!" Danny yelled. " _Permanently!"_

 _Please work!_

Danny opened the lid to the thermos and pointed it directly at the ghost, focusing what he knew to be ghostly energy into the thermos.

 _I hope I'm right!_

The Fenton whirred into life before sending out a bright blue beam that ensnared the Lunch Lady and pulled her into the Thermos. She screamed all the way before becoming silent as she was trapped in the thermos, Danny changing himself back into human form before snapping the lid back on the Thermos.

Looking around, Danny quickly spotted Sam and Tucker peeking out underneath the protest banner and hurried up to them, Thermos still in hand.

"What happened?" Sam asked. "Where's the ghost?"

"My parents have their moments!" Danny replied, smiling, as he shook the Thermos slightly.

"Ghost directly ahead."

Danny, Sam and Tucker turned quickly to see Jack and Maddie following the Fenton Finder's directions to the ghost, leading them to their son and his friends. Danny hid the Thermos behind his back.

"You'd have to be some sort of moron to not notice the ghost directly ahead."

Jack and Maddie glanced from the Fenton Finder to Danny (who smiled sheepishly), looking at their son as if expecting some sort of explanation.

"Uh, sorry Dad, you just missed him!" Danny gestured to somewhere behind him.

"We got a runner!" Jack yelled, both he and Maddie breaking out into a sprint in order to catch the "ghost".

"Great," Danny heard Jazz say before stalking away moodily. "Back to square one."

Sam and Tucker glanced from Jazz back to Danny, the question clear in their eyes.

"So… you're not going to tell them?" Tucker asked.

"Nah… I think I might finally get what these powers are for." Danny paused, trying to explain his thoughts. "They make me-"

Sam and Tucker and Danny both looked up in surprise as Mr. Lancer placed a heavy hand on Danny's shoulder.

"In a world of _trouble."_

The three gulped as they realized _they_ would be paying for the mess the ghost caused (and that Danny also helped create, but only because he was trying to stop the ghost).

When they heard that they had to clean up the _entire_ mess that day instead of class (classes had been cancelled due to the highly unusual situation), the three groaned and got to work. They worked well into the evening, picking up meat, vegetables, all types of trash leftover from the strange meat attack.

By the time Danny got home, he was absolutely exhausted. Jazz was in her room with her door shut and Jack and Maddie were tinkering with inventions and prototypes down in the lab, excitedly chattering about the ghost they had seen fly into the ground and heard it say something along the lines of "Thanks for…" something. They couldn't hear the rest of what the ghost had said because it had disappeared into the ground, but they had seen a ghost for the first time and both were _very_ excited.

Danny ignored his parents and decided to make himself leftovers for dinner.


	16. Chapter 16

**That reviewer: I know, I hated writing it! But there are some episodes that hold critical character development, and the first episode is one of those! I tried my best to make it as _nice_ to read as possible, but still. What would you suggest I do to keep the story flowing smoothly _and_ get the chance to analyze the character developments in the moment? I'm not going to write every episode, that would be a _pain_ , so if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them! Thank you so much for your feedback! **

**To all the other reviewers, thank you so much for letting me know what you think of my story! I really appreciate it :)**

* * *

Danny woke up with a _major_ migraine.

"Owwww!" Danny placed his palms against random places on his head, trying to alleviate the pain. When he moved to get out of bed, he was shocked to feel his _entire_ body aching as if all of his nerve endings were being pinched.

"What?! Why am I so sore?!"

Danny's headache prevented him from thinking clearly. Or quickly.

 _I wasn't this sore last night!_

Danny smacked his head, but then put more pressure on it when he hurt himself harder than he meant to. Plus, the major migraine.

 _Was I running on adrenaline all day yesterday?_

"Mom?" Danny called out. "Mo-om!"

"Danny! What is it, son?" Jack bounded up the stairs and into Danny's room in about three, maybe four, leaps of steps.

"Where's Mom?" Danny asked.

"She's busy designing a speeder to go into the Ghost Zone with in the lab! She's not to be disturbed on pain of death! I know from personal experience!"

Jack's loud voice was not helping Danny's headache. Usually, Danny would make a witty comment on Jack's choice of wording (if he knew from personal experience, he would have to be a ghost), but Danny's brain was in too much pain to come up with one.

"So that's where Jazz gets it from."

"Right-o, Dann-o! What did you need?" Jack flopped down on Danny's bed, making the other side of the bed (holding Danny) jump, thereby (in effect) making Danny bob up and down repeatedly as if he was on a boat out at sea.

The bouncing did not help Danny's headache, either.

"I have a huge headache, and I'm super sore from the detention yesterday," Danny told his dad, rubbing his eyes. They were aching, too.

"I'll get you some pain-reliever, Danny-boy!"

Jack jumped off Danny's bed, which had a similar effect to the mattress as jumping on it had, but not as badly.

"Thanks," was all Danny could manage as he tried to force the nausea he was experiencing away. It wasn't working.

Jack ran out of the room only to run in almost immediately again.

"By the way, Danny, school's been cancelled for the week due to the mysterious meat mess! Maddie and I are going to go scan the area for ghostly energies once Maddie's finished her genius session with the blueprint! So don't you worry about getting to school on time!"

Jack bounded excitedly down the stairs. Every noise Danny heard seemed to worsen his headache.

Danny's nausea transformed from "oh man, I feel dizzy" to "Get out of my way, I need to barf!" in the span of .56 seconds. Danny painfully sprang from his bed and stumbled to the bathroom, with no time to lift the toilet seat as Danny emptied his dinner (or what was left of it, most of it was digested) into the toilet bowl.

Danny gasped before heaving again, the smell of his own stomach acid worsening his nausea.

Pretty soon, there wasn't anything left for Danny to throw up, yet the nausea still remained. He eyed the toilet and realized that he had accidentally gotten a bit of his vomit on the seat.

 _Jazz isn't going to like that._

Danny contemplated the gross substance for a moment before determining:

 _What she doesn't know won't kill her._

He grabbed the toilet roll of paper and pulled an acceptable amount out to wipe the remains off the seat. When Danny deemed the toilet acceptable, he threw the paper into the toilet bowl and flushed his nauseous remains away.

If Danny's mind wasn't hurting so much, he would have noticed that his vomit was glowing. But he didn't, and he'd flushed the evidence away, so it didn't really matter.

Jack bounded up the stairs just in time to see Danny (on his knees by the toilet) flush it.

"Are you feeling alright, Danny?"

"No," he answered honestly. "I don't know if I can stomach water, let alone a pill."

"I'll let Maddie know, she's almost finished, she might know what to do."

"Thanks," Danny panted out, still out of breath from throwing up so much.

When Maddie wasn't in her "Disturb me, you die" mode, Jack informed her of Danny not feeling that great (which was, luckily for Danny, only 15 minutes after he had vomited), which turned on her "Mother-hen" mode. Danny had crawled in bed and curled himself in the fetal position (which made the nausea feel slightly better), but his head was still hammering as if a thousand war drums were beating within his skull and his body still ached liked crazy.

"Danny?"

Danny's head lifted enough to see his mother kneeling by his bed. She'd taken off her HAZMAT suit and put on a plaid shirt and jeans, so Danny could see her loving, but worried, eyes as she threaded her fingers through his hair.

Maddie slid the back of her hand to Danny's forehead and felt his temperature.

"You're clammy," she noted. "Do you think you've caught something? Has a bug been going around school?"

Danny's head hurt too much for him to think if there _was_ a bug that had been going through school. He shrugged his shoulders as much as he could while laying in bed.

"Jack told me you threw up?"

Danny nodded.

"What else?"

"Headache."

"How bad is it?"

Danny groaned. Maddie couldn't help but let out a small chuckle.

"My poor little baby," she cooed as she massaged her son's head.

"Mo-oom," Danny whined, but it was a half-hearted whine because the pressure she was putting on his head felt _so good_.

"It's a good thing there isn't any school for the rest of the week," Maddie smirked. "We wouldn't want you to have to miss class."

Danny groaned again.

"Is there anything else that hurts? Do you have a runny nose, or something else?"

"My body."

"Your body what?"

"It's so _sore_ ," Danny sighed.

"Well, I haven't heard of a bug that made a person's entire _body_ sore. You had detention yesterday, right?" Maddie _would_ be scolding her son for getting in detention, but she knew that that wasn't something that Danny needed at the moment.

"Yeah," Danny groaned. "Sam, Tucker and I were the only ones left at the school when the meat monster thing yesterday disappeared, so Mr. Lancer decided to give us detention for the mess and made us clean it up."

"That was a lot of meat," Maddie commented. "Must have taken a long time to clean it up."

"And it was just the _three_ of us!"

"That might be why you're sore, sweetie," Maddie smiled, before a thought popped into her head.

 _Is this ecto-radiation poisoning?_

All humor vanished from Danny's mother as she realized that what Danny was going through might _not_ be a flu. She slid the hand that was massaging Danny's head down to his neck to feel his pulse. It was faint and erotic, which was all Maddie needed to become even more concerned than she was before.

"Are you having any trouble breathing, Danny?"

"No… a little, maybe… why?"

"The ecto-radiation from a month ago might have caught up to you. You might be experiencing radiation poisoning."

Danny could clearly hear the concern in his mother's voice (and his own heartbeat quickened).

"You sure?"

"No, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Do you think you could make the journey down to the lab?"

"More tests?" Danny groaned.

"Yes, I'm sorry, Danny. If you had radiation sickness from your exposure a month ago, you should have been showing immediate signs of it, instead of it appearing now, but you didn't show many, if any, signs beside your allergic reaction to ectoranium and the small amounts of ectoplasm in your system…" Maddie's thoughts flew ahead of her mouth, which could no longer keep up with the thought processes happening within her brain. Everything that escaped her mouth were random words that seemed to have no connection with the other until it was a jumbled mess.

Maddie suddenly snapped out of her mind home and turned back to Danny, who was trying to keep up with what his mother was saying, and asked again,

"Can you make the trip down to the lab?"

"Yeah," Danny sighed. "I'm coming."

Danny forced himself out of his bed and sluggishly tumbled towards the door. Maddie was quick to go to his side and helped him walk out of his room and down the stairs, through the kitchen and down the other set of stairs into the lab.

The closer Danny got the lab, the better he felt. His headache turned from a hard hammering to an annoying bumping. His body was still sore, but his headache was almost gone.

Danny was subconsciously soaking in the excess energy from the Ghost Portal. He could hear the Portal calling to him, begging him _home_ …

Danny's eyes snapped open when he realized what was happening. He'd called… whatever was beyond the portal, _home_. He'd never even _seen_ the Ghost Zone!

Danny threw out all thoughts of the Portal and Zone and focused on what his mother was doing.

Maddie pulled out the lab's portable/foldable examination table and set it up. Danny knew the routine and hopped on it carefully. The nausea hadn't fully gone away, and Danny didn't want it to get worse.

Danny (once again) went through a "Dr. Maddie Fenton" check-up, except Maddie was looking for something specific this time.

But whatever Maddie was specifically looking for, she wasn't finding it. Danny's blood still had trace amounts of ectoplasm in it, but it was less than the sample she had taken a month before, which confirmed her theory that Danny's immune system was fighting against the ectoplasm in his circulatory system.

Neither Danny nor Maddie knew this, but Danny had overexerted himself the day before when fighting the Lunch Lady meat monster. Danny's core was pulling in as much ectoplasm as it could to recover as quickly as possible before spreading out through his body again. It was the reason why Danny woke up that morning with his killer headache, aching body, and awful nausea.

It was also why Danny initially felt more open to the Portal: his ghost core was absorbing the energy the portal gave off in flares and was using it to speed up the healing process.

When Maddie had taken blood from Danny's arm, she only found a small portion of ectoplasm in comparison to what _should_ have been there. In reality, Danny's body was creating ectoplasmic blood instead of human blood, and the normal blood that had survived the accident was dying out. The blood sample Maddie had taken was the blood that _hadn't_ been changed by the portal, and within the next month, all of those blood cells would be replaced with the ectoplasmic blood cells.

But neither Maddie or Danny knew that.

Maddie was happy to conclude that Danny was simply suffering a bug and that his body's aching was from spending hours cleaning up meat the night before.

Danny was simply happy to curl back in his bed and ignore the feelings that had sprouted within him when he was within the portal's vicinity again.

But within Danny's body was a ghost core which, like a muscle, only grows stronger when broken. And the stronger the core becomes, the harder it becomes to remove it.

But the core is the ghost: the core within Danny was now half of Danny's soul, and a soul is something that should never be split.

Because once a soul is broken, only a miracle could mend it.


	17. Chapter 17

Jack was in a wonderful mood. The portal was working, his and Maddie's projects were coming along great (if only they had a ghost to test on), and now, he could go _ghost fishing._

The fact that he'd been sitting in front of the ghost portal for an hour without so much as a little nip hadn't lowered his optimism. Ghost fishing was basically the same as fishing, and Jack _loved_ fishing.

Jack had always enjoyed the paranormal. That instinctual fear rising within the body was a feeling that Jack craved like a woman craved chocolate: he loved it. He loved it when the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened as the feeling of being _watched_ by something shot through his nervous system.

He and Maddie had tried to find what scientifically happened when that feeling, that 6th sense, occurred and why humans should (or should _not_ , depending on what they found) trust that instinct. They're not the only scientists to study this "sixth sense", but they _are_ the only scientists to study it (or try to study it) with the paranormal in mind.

Of course, neither Jack nor Maddie had _seen_ a ghost (except for that ghost during the Mysterious Meat incident, but they hadn't actually _seen_ the ghost, they just heard a voice disappearing into the ground).

It was enough to keep the two paranormal scientists chins up. They loved their work, but they were currently at a standstill: they had prototypes of all sorts of ghost-hunting equipment, they just needed a ghost to test them on before they could improve on them.

Hence, ghost fishing.

Jack was _very_ happy to volunteer for the job.

[Which brings us to the beginning of the chapter]

Jack was in a wonderful mood (fishing for ghosts) when he heard his son calling for him from the kitchen.

He ignored him. Fishing was, after all, a quiet sport. It was a hunt, and Jack loved ghost hunting more than he loved fishing. It was a win-win, he could fish _and_ hunt for ghosts at the same time!

He ignored Danny trampling down the stairs to the lab and walk up to where he was sitting. For some reason, Jack's neck hairs started to prickle. A ghost was near his line, he just _knew_ it!

"Hey Dad, what are you doing?" Danny asked rather loudly.

"Shhhhh," Jack pressed his finger against Danny's lips (and it lingered there for a few extra moments), eyes never leaving the ghost portal.

"I'm ghost fishing: the line is coated with a special ghost resin that ghosts can't break," he whispered. "Quiet now… don't want to _spook_ 'em."

 _Did… did Dad just make a pun?_ Danny thought, quite amazed. He mentally face-palmed himself.

 _Of course._ That's _where I get it from._

Danny kept quiet and watched the line.

He quickly became bored. (What could he say? Fishing was… boring.)

A couple of weeks had passed since the "Mysterious Meat" incident at school. Danny, Sam and Tucker had spent more time just hanging out because Danny's powers had stabilized (there were a couple of incidents, like the day before with Paulina, but Danny was _nervous_ , and nobody _caught_ him, so no harm, no foul), therefore, he had no need to practice controlling them. They'd spent 15 minutes or so every day just playing around with his powers, just to have fun and make sure that Danny _remembered_ to not instinctively turn invisible or intangible in certain situations (Sam had a lot of fun having an excuse to flick Danny repeatedly), not to mention _flying_. Danny discovered (not surprisingly) that he really enjoyed the feeling of _freedom_ that flight gave him.

On some nights, when Danny found that he couldn't sleep, he'd sneak out of his room (thanks to intangibility) and invisibly fly as high as he could before dropping his invisibility (it does require focus!) and just looping and diving around.

He'd go as high as he dared go in the atmosphere and stargaze away from the city lights. The view he had up there was _fantastic_.

Danny found that flying was a wonderful stress reliever. If he ever suffered from a random bout of insomnia, he'd go flying (which would exhaust him) and would fall straight to sleep when he'd come back half an hour later.

Jack suddenly realized that nature was calling and fled to relieve it, leaving Danny with the line.

Danny was nodding off when the line tightened.

One weird, but short, fight with a dragon-girl later, Jack returned and took over the fishing line again and Danny left for school.

Where he told Tucker about the dragon ghost. The three friends had encountered a few "ectopus" like ghosts (Tucker named them) and Danny had easily taken care of them.

They enjoyed their "hero" moments. What teenagers wouldn't in their situation? The ectopuses came, scared humans (attacked some, too), Danny "went ghost" (as Danny had dubbed) and kicked ghost butt.

This ghost dragon wasn't as bad as the lunch lady, but she _was_ worse than the ectopuses. The ectopuses didn't _breathe fire._

"So you're serious, it was a _ghost dragon._ That just transformed into a _girl_ when you beat her?" Tucker asked.

"Yep."

"Man, that's rough." Tucker paused. "Was she cute?"

"Tuck, she's _dead."_

"Yeah, but so are you."

Tuck received a smack in the back of his head for that comment. Sam had gone to class to save three seats next to each other, so Danny had to fill in for her.

"But hey, look at the bright side! Thanks to you, I know the quickest way to a girls heart!"

Danny sighed.

 _Don't say it._

"Clean boxers!"

 _I did not need that reminder, Tuck._ Danny rubbed the muscles in the back of his neck, which had suddenly become tight.

"I blew it yesterday! Paulina probably won't even _look_ at me now!"

The pretty Hispanic girl the two were talking about showed up at that moment and called to Danny in her "sweet" voice.

Tuck only had to glance at Danny's face to know what he wanted.

"I get it, I'm out," Tuck grinned at Danny's good fortune.

"Good luck!" he added with a thumbs-up, before hurrying away to join Sam.

"Hey Tuck, where's Danny?" Sam asked as Tucker walked up to one of the desks next to her.

"Oh, he's just flirting with Paulina," he answered nonchalantly as he plopped down in his seat.

"What."

Tucker looked over to Sam and realized his mistake.

"Or Paulina was flirting with Danny. Either one. Or both!" Tucker refused to mention Sam's crush on Danny: that would be too low, and Tucker only liked to hit below the belt when it was Danny they were talking about (because Danny could totally take it, he's Danny) or an enemy that Tucker was in no danger of receiving retaliation from.

Sam closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. To an outsider, they were the same glaring, empty eyes that any outsider would expect from a goth: Tuck knew differently.

Sam was _mad._

 _Cat fight!_ Tucker cheered. Tucker looooved a good cat fight. It was something that made girls attractive (to him, at least. When he wasn't in line of fire.)

Tucker wished he had popcorn the day before when Danny tried to flirt with Paulina and his pants fell down. The pre-cat fight Sam and Paulina had was so _entertaining!_

Tucker was no fool. He knew that girls held grudges. He knew they held grudges for _ages_. Especially against each other: Sam and Paulina would be rivals for the rest of high school. Probably for the rest of their lives.

Tucker also knew that the explosions that would occur between the two would be… awesome.

Danny ran in to the classroom at that moment with his faced flushed red (along with a belt wrapped tightly around his thin waist). Tucker smirked while Sam glared, but the bell rang, so Danny couldn't say what had happened.

When classes were over, Danny told Sam and Tucker about the teacher conference he needed to convince his dad to go to that afternoon and that he'd meet them at the mall later.

"Dad?" Danny called as soon as he stepped through the front door.

"He's in the lab, sweetie! How was your day?" Maddie called through the kitchen. Danny walked to where his mother was and noticed that she was _not_ cooking dinner. She was… doing something weird.

"What are you doing?"

"Hmm?" Maddie folded the leg that was raised high in the air down to the ground. Danny knew that his mother was a martial artist, but he no clue that that included _crazy flexibility._

 _Why is my family surprising me all of a sudden?_ Danny thought, his eyes wide as his mother lifted her other leg and pulled it towards her face.

"Oh, I'm just stretching. I usually do this while you're at school, when I have the time, but this afternoon has been rather busy and Jack's banned me from the lab."

Maddie proceeded to lift her other leg backwards, pulling her arms back to pull it as close to her back as possible.

"Right."

"Ugh, it's been a while," Maddie groaned. "You needed to talk to your father?"

"Yes, Mr. Lancer wants to talk to him about… something."

"Don't tell me you're in trouble at school, Danny," Maddie warned as she lowered her leg and stretched the other one in the same way (she groaned again as she did so).

"No- No, I'm not!" Danny quickly denied.

"Well, just warning you, Jack might not be in a good mood. He hasn't caught a single ghost all day, it's really affecting his confidence in his fishing skills." Maddie dropped her leg, then slid down to the floor in a Russian split and plopped her stomach on the ground in front of her.

"OK, thanks for the warning, Mom. You… have fun…"

"Thanks, Danny!" Maddie waved Danny off.

Danny rushed upstairs to drop his backpack off in his room, then ran down to the basement, barely remembering to be quiet as he neared the bottom. He tip-toed towards his father, who was slumping in his chair.

Danny gulped.

"Catch anything, Dad?"

"I couldn't catch a _cold,_ I've been sitting here all day without a single bite!"

Danny glanced around the room nervously before taking the parent-teacher conference note from Mr. Lancer out of his pocket. He was just about to speak when Jack continued.

"I'm so frustrated, I want to take out my rage on the first person who gives me bad news!"

Danny winced at his father's tone.

"You wanted to tell me something?"

 _Crap oh crap oh crap! Ugh, just go for it._

"Uh, well, sort of… Mr. Lancer-"

Jack's reaction was immediate and frightening (for a 14-year-old son). His back straightened and his brow furrowed.

"Mr. Lancer _what?"_ Jack turned to Danny. " _Is this_ _ **bad news**_ _?"_

Danny's mind was working overtime.

 _Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap- wait…_

Danny suddenly recalled to earlier that day when he'd somehow gained control over Dash's body. So he did what any teenager would do: avoid getting in trouble with his parents.

 **A/N Dang, I really don't like exams. This week has been stressful. Thanks for your reviews and for reading! :)**


	18. Chapter 18

"Sorry I'm late!"

Danny ran up to his friends outside of the mall. Sam lifted an eyebrow skeptically as she crossed her arms.

"Sure, don't mind us, we'll wait for you while you go making out with _Paulina."_

"What- I wasn't- _Paulina?"_ Danny spluttered. While Danny would love to kiss Paulina, the pretty Hispanic girl was _not_ the current thought train running through his brain.

"I was in a parent-teacher conference with Mr. Lancer!"

"Right."

Tucker ignored his two best friends as he tried to ask another girl to the school dance.

"I was!"

"We're not allowed in the parent-teacher meetings!" Sam argued.

"I'm hungry! Who's hungry?" Tucker interrupted suddenly (preventing the argument to continue).

"I'll tell you _how_ I was at the meeting after we get something to eat, OK?" Danny compromised (he would tell them, anyway, because it involved his ghost powers).

"It started earlier today when Dash pushed me in a locker while I was talking to Paulina."

"Oh yeah, how did that go? Well, besides Dash interrupting," Tucker piped in. The three walked inside the mall and towards the food court.

"Well, I guess it went alright, but anyway, I was talking to Paulina when Dash pushed me in a locker and started flirting with her. I'll have a double cheeseburger and medium fries," Danny ordered. Tucker ordered a double hamburger and large fries while Sam asked for a salad. They continued their conversation once they had their orders and were sitting at a table far away from other people.

"Let me guess, you phased through the locker and embarrassed Dash with your powers," Sam continued the conversation.

"No… well, yes, but not with the powers you're thinking of," Danny admitted sheepishly before biting into his burger. Sam's eyes narrowed. He finished chewing before continuing.

"I don't really know what happened, all I know is, one minute I was standing behind Dash (invisibly and intangibly), and the next I was in Dash's body."

"What?" Sam and Tucker asked at the same time. Sam was about to take a bite of salad, so the fork was comically raised half-way to her mouth while Tucker's mouth was filled with chewed hamburger.

"I was in Dash's body! I could control his body, his mouth, everything!"

"So the parent-teacher conference… was basically you controlling your dad's body," Sam realized.

"Yeah, and neither remember what happened while I was controlling them."

"That is so wrong on so many different levels," she muttered. Tucker chomped another ginormous bite from his burger and chewed on it loudly. Sam scrunched her nose at Tucker's disgusting eating rituals before asking Danny,

"Something tells me there's more to this story. Spill."

Danny sighed.

"During the conference, I tried to warm up to Mr. Lancer's good side by saying that we thought that teachers weren't paid enough or received enough credit for what they do, but that apparently gave Mr. Lancer the idea to ask Dad if he would chaperone the school dance."

"So your dad is going to _chaperone_ the _dance_?" Sam asked, horrified.

"Yes," Danny rested his fist on his cheek and slowly lowered his head to the table as he spoke. "But he doesn't _know_ he's going to chaperone because he doesn't remember that _I'm_ the one that made him say _yes!_ "

Danny's hands would be wrenching his hair out if it weren't for the fact that his hands were greasy from the fast food he was eating, so he settled for banging his forehead softly against the table.

"Let me get this straight," Tucker asked. He obviously had not been paying that much attention to the conversation (trying to find a date for the dance would do that to a guy). "You can just _walk_ into people and take over their body from the inside?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Danny groaned, his voice muffled from speaking into the table. Danny didn't really like the idea of being able to _control_ people like that. It reminded him of the possession the ghosts in horror movies that he, Sam and Tucker watched together would do. It made him feel… he didn't know how it made him feel. He felt powerful, but he also felt guilty for taking away someone's free will.

"Say, Danny," Tucker started. Danny shifted his head so he could see Tucker's face from the table.

"If you could control a girl for just about _two minutes-"_

"Forget it," Danny interrupted as he kicked Tucker's shin (Tucker yelped in pain) and sat up in his chair. He knew that his new power wasn't something that should be used for small trifles. "You can get your own date for the dance, like _I_ did."

And there was no way that he'd let Tucker take the easy way out. If _he_ had to get a date the hard way, so did Tucker.

Sam couldn't help but put in a witty remark at Danny.

"Does he have to take off his pants _and_ act like a dweeb, or would either one do?" She smirked.

She waited a couple of seconds for either one of her best friends to do… something, she didn't know what.

OK, she did know, but she wasn't about to admit it. There was _no way_ she would openly admit that she wanted to go to a _dance_. It would make her like… other _girls._

Sam internally shuddered at the thought and pushed it away. Danny and Tucker (as usual) were both oblivious to Sam's "hints". She tried again.

"Honestly, I'm _glad_ I don't have to go to some stupid dance, saves me the embarrassment of wearing the _lame_ dress my parents bought me…" Sam chuckled at bit nervously, hoping and praying that Tucker or Danny would hear it.

They didn't. They just slammed it back in her face.

"So no one's asked you, huh?" Tucker commented, shoving some fries in his mouth.

 _Dang it, Tucker! How can you not see it?_ Sam mentally yelled. No one heard her. _OK, they didn't hear that, I'll have to pull the outer beauty card._

"Maybe if I was as pretty as _Paulina_."

That didn't work either.

"Why are you so down on her? So she's pretty, it's not a crime," Danny shrugged his shoulders.

 _And there went my last card._ Sam thought sadly.

"Looks are deceiving, Danny," Sam mumbled. At that moment, the floor shook and the people at the other end of the food court began screaming and running around in fear. A loud roar erupted throughout the mall.

Danny felt a chill travel up his spine, his breath showing, signifying a ghost.

"Ghost time," Tucker smirked. "Can I finish your fries?"

Danny rolled his eyes before slipping underneath the table and transforming into his ghost half. He didn't have to even think to do it, anymore, the trigger to transform was something that Danny now knew how to do (it was as easy as breathing).

When Danny saw what was attacking the mall, he blinked in surprise and stopped flying for a few seconds just staring at the ginormous ghost dragon setting fire to the closest stores. He shook his head and flew closer.

"Hey, haven't we met somewhere?"

The dragon-girl was in no mood to talk, the ghost roared and aimed a fiery breath at Danny, who dodged the flames and tried diplomacy again.

"Maybe we started on the wrong foot. Hi, I'm Danny Phantom. What's your name?"

[The idea for the name 'Danny Phantom' surprisingly did not come from Danny. Sam and Tucker were talking about Danny's ghost side while Danny was fighting an ectopus a few weeks after the Mysterious Meat incident when Sam had said aloud "Danny's phantom" to describe Danny's ghost half. Tucker only heard a cool superhero name. Sam thought Tucker was being ridiculous at first and the two had argued about it for a couple days behind Danny's back until Tucker finally convinced Sam with the point that if Danny was going to catch any attention from fighting ghosts, people were going to wonder who he was, and Danny couldn't just say "Danny Fenton", or "Danny". Sam agreed that Danny _did_ need a different name for his ghost half, so they told Danny of their idea later that very day and Danny had agreed with it whole-heartedly.]

The ghost dragon roared again and whipped its tail around, hitting Danny square in the chest and crashing into a food court restaurant.

 _Testy, got it._

Danny's head spun as he tried to recover from the fall as fast as possible. He quickly leapt out of the way when the dragon's fire burst towards him, completely incinerating the hot dog restaurant.

Danny made a lame pun about dudes and wieners as he flew towards the dragon and slammed into its chest. The dragon grabbed Danny and flipped him over so he was trapped underneath its ginormous claws. Danny could feel the tips digging into his chest, but ignored the pain as the dragon yelled unintelligibly about "tea".

"You want tea? Better than coffee, that makes you jittery." Danny slid out of the dragon's claws and into the floor intangibly, floating down a few feet so he could gain some momentum for an attack. He flew up as fast as he could and to give the dragon a heavy sucker punch to the throat.

"How about a punch?" he yelled as soon as he broke the surface and turned tangible. If the dragon had bones, Danny's punch would have broken its jaw.

Danny turned around to face the dragon again but was surprised when he saw that the dragon had vanished. Danny turned invisible and flew a few feet to the side, anticipation the dragon to attack before accepting that the dragon was gone. He flew around the mall a few times just to be sure, then found his friends and invisibly transformed behind them.

Sam gasped as soon as she noticed Danny was there and asked if he was alright.

"I'm fine, but that's the second time I've fought that dragon," Danny's mind was focused on the dragon. "We need to investigate. How are you guys? Are you hurt?"

Sam and Tucker both said they were fine and Tucker suddenly got a date with Valerie Grey (only because there was no one else to go with), so the three determined it was time to go home.

* * *

When Danny got home, his parents were intensively watching the news (Jack had popcorn) as they listened to the Amity News reporting the dragon ghost attacking the mall.

Nobody got very good recordings of the fight between Danny and the dragon ghost. All of the images were blurred, so the most people could see of the fight was the enormous blue ghost and a black blur. The journalists were arguing over the event, some thinking it was an actual ghost, some thinking it was a very violently planned prank, to some blaming terrorism. Danny stayed long enough to know that he would not be mentioned and left to go finish his homework in his room. Until he heard his mom shut off the TV and ask his dad how the teacher-parent conference went.

Danny gulped and ran up to his room quickly, slamming the door to let his parents know he was in his room, before turning intangible and floated downstairs, quickly leaping into Jack's body.

"-I don't remember any-" Jack paused as Danny took control. It was a very strange feeling. When Danny's consciousness overpowered Jack's (Danny refused to even think the word 'host'), Danny felt himself returning to tangibility, but his body was no longer his own.

People are very used to being in their own body. They know how long their arms and legs are, they know where their hips end, their height, their balance, everything.

Danny's sense for his body had to change whenever he took over someone else's body. Going from a pre-growth spurt 5'5" to 6'8" with a girth at least thrice the size of his own should be a very disorienting thing: and it was.

"Right, that teacher-parent conference! I completely forgot about it," Danny chuckled nervously.

Trying to fool Mr. Lancer that Jack was 100% himself was one thing. They were practically strangers (except Mr. Lancer and the rest of the entire town knew of Jack's eccentric and outgoing personality).

Fooling Maddie was something else entirely. Maddie knew Jack better than her children knew Jack (and sometimes better than Jack knew himself).

On top of the fact that Danny still hadn't developed _verbal evasive maneuvers_ (Danny refused to call it lying), Danny was not as eccentric or as outgoing as his father.

Danny was also a 14-year-old teenager. Suddenly having ghost powers did not magically bestow his brain with the wisdom of an ancient master of time or the sense of responsibility that Spiderman had (with great power comes great responsibility).

Danny was teenager: no matter how intelligent he or his family were, he was still a teenage boy just starting to go into puberty. He was going to be immature, he was going to be hormonal, and he was going to start rebelling against his parents.

[Not saying that all teenagers are awful, hormonal disobedient brats: just saying that everybody goes through some point in their life where they're immature, where they have hormones raging through their body, and where they're going to rebel against their parents, it doesn't have to be huge, it can just be small things. It's part of growing up, and Danny just happened to be entering that stage of life right when he got his powers.]

"Well," Danny's- _Jack's_ palms started to sweat, and Danny tried his best to not rub the back of his neck. "Mr. Lancer asked us to chaperone the school dance this Friday."

Danny did not sound like Jack _at all, and_ Maddie picked up on it.

"Jack, are you alright?" Maddie gently touched Jack's shoulder.

Even though Danny was in control, Jack's body still reacted to his wife's loving touch. Danny was not prepared for the emotions that suddenly flushed through Jack's system.

Danny decided to try to say the line again, with more "Jack" character.

"Didn't you hear me, Mads? We've been asked to _chaperone_ Danny's school dance this Friday!"

It was a little better, but not much. Maddie, however, took to the idea in a very mature way.

"Wonderful! We can keep an eye on Danny and have some fun dancing!"

Danny decided that was a good time to leave Jack's body, but then Maddie decided to have _other ideas._

That only motivated Danny to _flee_.

He wasn't fast enough to escape the sensation of his mom in his mouth. As soon as Danny was in the safety of his room, he gagged and wiped his tongue and lips, even though it was _Jack_ that had been kissed.

Simply put, Danny was traumatized.

"Gah, I'm _never_ going to be able to forget that!" Danny shuddered, then shuddered again, making weird gross sounds.

"There is _no way_ Sam or Tucker are hearing about this."

 **A/N so I _was_ going to save this chapter for tomorrow or Tuesday to give me more time to write the next chapter, but then someone posted a lovely review that made me feel special and I couldn't resist ;)**

 _ **Someone**_ **(wink) also decided that I was worthy of a challenge, so I'm going to start a more serious, Danny Phantom/Batman crossover. I've already decided that I'll be writing longer chapters for that story, which means that it won't be updated as quickly as this one. But if you're interested in checking it out, I'm hoping to have the first chapter for that up sometime in this next week. :)**

 **Thanks for reading! :)**


	19. Chapter 19

"I _still_ don't know why we have to supervise this dance. Or wear this stupid suit."

Maddie was straightening the tie Jack was wearing, while Jack shifted uncomfortably in the nicest suit he had: dark navy blue slacks, a white pressed shirt, and a matching blue suit jacket that was too small for Jack's broad frame. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, his brown shoes glinting (and squeaking) from being freshly polished (by Maddie. The only reason the suit wasn't a complete fashion nightmare was because Maddie was the one who coordinated the entire outfit.)

Maddie herself was dressed very primly in a light-blue dress that covered her knees and shoulders, with barely a hint towards her womanly assets (which was quite the accomplishment, considering the woman was very curvy in the right places) that still made her look ten years younger than she already looked. Her make-up was light, simply accentuating her cheekbones and slightly lengthening her eyelashes (which brought attention to her violet eyes). The only make-up that was obvious was her lipstick, which was a rather bright, but appropriate shade of light red.

" _Because,"_ Maddie had obviously already explained the situation that she believed that Jack had agreed to several times, and she was a little ticked off about it. "It's Danny's first dance, _Jack._ If we're going to chaperone this thing, we don't want to _embarrass_ him."

"How would we embarrass him?" Jack, the happy soul he was, could not imagine Danny being embarrassed by other people, since he himself was hardly ever embarrassed and Danny _was_ his son. It should be genetic!

Before Maddie could answer with possible situations where Danny would be embarrassed, Jazz decided to put in her two cents on her parents chaperoning the dance (which she was not going to. She didn't care for the dance, and neither did the only other boy in the school that was dateless: Spike. Jazz asked Spike if he wanted to go to the dance, which he had answered with a glare that Jazz understood to be "Heck no, I'd rather burn in hell". Deep inside, where Jazz had crammed her teenage self, the girl was a little depressed at not being asked by _anybody_ , _again_ , but she was rather used to _not_ having friends, so she had organized a party the same night as the dance (for herself), which included a book, a thick duvet blanket, and a steaming cup of hot cocoa and pajamas.

"I think it's great whenever you guys do _anything_ that doesn't have something to do with your _sick_ obsession with _**ghosts**_ _!_ "

"Funny, I don't even remember volunteering for the dance! It's all a vague _blur_." Jack eyed the corner of the room as if he was expecting a ghost to pop out and attack (which he was. A Fenton is prepared for anything. Well, almost anything. Nevermind, only ghosts, but still: prepared.)

"Maybe you're just starting to lose your memory, Dad, you lose your keys all the time," Jazz responded sharply, knowing exactly what her father was thinking of. Before Jack could respond, Jazz turned away walked towards Danny, whispering as she opened the fridge door,

"By the way, Danny, _just_ so you know, I'm on to your little _secret."_ She smirked internally. And literally, but it was on the side of her face that Danny couldn't see.

Danny spat out the water he was drinking and started to choke a little, before coughing out,

"Wh-what? What… secret?"

 _He's so adorable when he's flustered. It's so obvious, you're too obvious Danny!_

"The clumsiness, the nervousness, the _sputtering-_ I can't believe I didn't figure out before!" She closed the refrigerator and turned to face Danny.

"You have a _girlfriend!"_

"It'salie,I'mnotaghost!"

 _That_ earned a few strange stares at the baby of the family.

"Wai- she's not my girlfriend, she's just going to the dance with me!"

Jack immediately forgot the previous strange statement that was a bit too rushed for him or Maddie to hear properly, something about ghosts, so he happily boomed,

"That's _great!_ I can meet her and talk to her about _ghosts!"_

Jazz and Danny stared at their father for a few moments, Danny in absolute horror and Jazz in a mixture of cringing and amusement. She settled for a witty remark with a hint of older-sister teasing.

"You better let her know your family's insane now, Danny. If you marry her and she finds out later… that's entrapment."

Jazz saw Danny roll his eyes as he left the kitchen, but she didn't really care about her brother's current opinion of her: she had a lovely date with "Crime and Punishment". (It was also technically homework, but Jazz was enjoying the psychological process Raskolnikov (the main character) was going through so much, she'd finished the book within the first weekend her AP English class had started on it and was now re-reading it at the class's pace so she could keep up with the homework and knew exactly what not to say in their class Socratic discussions.)

Tucker came about half an hour later, joining Danny in his room, dressed in a dark green suit that matched his eyes, but did not go so well with his skin tone. He still looked pretty good in it, for a fourteen-year old entering puberty.

He had ruined the outfit by insisting on wearing his red beret, which completely clashed with his suit and tie and ruined the classy look the suit gave him.

Danny was dressed in a slimming dark blue suit (picked out by his mother). He also looked good in it (for a 14-year old), but the boy was obviously uncomfortable in the tight collar while the suit jacket restricted his arm and shoulder movement.

* * *

One dragon fight and a single dance with Sam later (who had worn a _very_ pretty goth dress), Danny returned home to see his parents bent over the kitchen table, discussing a prototype of some sort, no longer dressed in formal suit or dress, but back in their HAZMAT suits, and Jazz sitting on the couch, tightly wrapped up in a thick blanket, a cup of hot cocoa half-drunk on the small coffee table in front of her, and 100% asleep with her nose in the book she had been reading.

Danny smiled as he observed his family: even though they were all crazy and weird in their own ways, he wouldn't ask for anything else. He loved them.

Danny gasped silently as a sharp pang pierced his heart: he quickly moved through the front hall to the stairs, running up as silently as he could (basically floating), and locking his bedroom door behind him. His clothes seemed to be burning him, it was too hot; he ripped his suit off and threw it to the side, bending over when the pain intensified.

He hadn't realized that he had transformed into his ghost side. Danny _longed_ to **_scream_** , but his vocal chords weren't working, which turned out to be a good thing at that time, because if Danny had made any sound, his parents would be bounding upstairs to find what was wrong and would only find a ghost in pain.

Another wave of intense _agony_ washed over Danny, and suddenly, Danny was _freezing._ He rubbed his arms and dove under his blanket, but it wasn't _enough,_ he was still frozen to the bone, so the boy wrenched the blanket off and shakily opened his closet to find all the sweaters he owned. He pulled on three sweaters over his inverted HAZMAT suit, then pulled on several layers of sweatpants. He trembled to his dresser, pulling open his sock drawer and pulling on sock after sock after sock. He crawled back under his blanket and fell asleep, as cold as if he were outside in snow, with nothing on but boxer shorts.

Halfway through the night, Danny woke up (in human form), positively steaming. He ripped his blanket off, then his several layers of clothing until he wore nothing but a sweaty pair of sweatshirts.

His skin was soaked in sweat: Danny felt very gross, so he picked up the towel left on his floor from the shower he took before preparing for the dance and wiped his entire body down.

Danny opened a window to let some cool air in when his "ghost sense" went off. Without even really thinking about it, the boy transformed into his ghost half and flew off to find the ghost that was close enough to set off his ghost sense.

He had searched for several minutes when his ghost sense went off again. Danny found that his power to sense other ghosts worked like the game of Hot or Cold, except he became colder instead of hotter when nearing the ghost. It wasn't a very comfortable feeling, but it seemed to know to disappear when Danny found the ghost he had sensed. He didn't know if it was because it disappeared when he no longer focused on it, or if he could just turn it on or off whenever he felt like it. Sam and Tucker tried to come up with theories for _why_ the sense worked the way it did, but Danny's friends were _not_ ectoplasmic scientists (even though Danny had access to two renowned ectoplasmic specialists, he was sure his parents would have absolutely _no clue_ how ghosts could sense each other, so he didn't even bother trying to come up with some way to sneakily ask about it): every theory the trio came up with would never seem to quite fit, so Sam and Tucker decided to give up on trying to find out and instead focused on helping Danny train his abilities.

Danny found the ghost that had kept him from going back to bed: it was the dragon-girl ghost, except she wasn't in dragon form and she didn't have the amulet on her.

She seemed… very sad. She wasn't hurting anyone, she was just floating through the streets with her head down and her hands clenched very femininely across her stomach.

Danny didn't know what to do. The ghost was obviously very upset, and Danny didn't want to upset her (but then again, who would want to upset _any_ upset girl any further?), but he couldn't leave her wandering the streets alone. His parents might catch her and drag her back to their lab to experiment their weapons on her.

"Hey, are you lost?" Danny tried to sound kind, but it didn't really work very well.

The girl turned and, recognizing Danny from their fight a week or so earlier, glared at him and flew off. Danny immediately flew after her and tried to shout apologies, but the girl disappeared into the cloudy night.

Danny sighed, before silently whispering,

"I just wanted to help…"

He quickly turned and flew back home, intangibly flying through his window before transforming into his human half, his mind on the ghost-dragon girl that had seemed so lost in the streets of Amity Park. The boy's eyes lit up a bright green as he searched his room for his suit, where he had stuffed the golden necklace after the last (and only) dance with Sam.

When he found the necklace, he stared at the green emerald shining back at him before wiping away at a smudge that had somehow found its way to the metallic part. He noticed a flash of green reflecting where his eyes would have been blue, but ignored it. He set the necklace on his dresser, then, blinking rather tiredly, flopped back on to his bed and had barely managed to cover himself when he fell straight back to sleep.

The ghost girl appeared from her invisible state, suddenly seeing Danny with a different perspective. She grabbed her necklace and was about to leave when she turned back to face Danny's sleeping form and gave the boy a small curtsy, bowing her head slightly, showing the unconscious young man her respect for his noble heart.

She disappeared an instant later, finally feeling the call from the Ghost Zone and following it home.

 **A/N sorry it took so long to get this out (I know, 10/11 days, I'm so terrible), but I'm going to give the school and work combo excuse. And the fact that my muse had given way to another idea and was completely ignoring this one.**


	20. Chapter 20

"You want to know something weird about that Skulker ghost that I just realized?"

Danny looked up from the homework he was trying to concentrate on and lifted an eyebrow at Tucker's declaration.

"What was _weird_ about 'that Skulker ghost', Tucker? I don't know, maybe that he hunted _animals for sport! How about that?!"_ Sam seethed.

Tucker's body was carefully inching away from the angry goth girl, his eyes wide as he anticipated a steel-toed boot to the shin. When it didn't happen, he slightly relaxed and continued speaking.

"The more you evaded him, the more obsessed he seemed to become with capturing you."

Sam chuckled darkly.

"I'm sure _all_ hunters are like that, Tuck."

"BUT- there was also the 'Box Ghost', and he was obsessed with boxes!"

"What does this have to do with the Skulker ghost?" Sam snapped right back.

"GUYS!" Danny had to physically push the two arguing away.

"I know what you're talking about, Tuck," Danny started.

"THANK you!" Tucker crossed his arms smugly.

"Don't look so happy about that, if you're subconsciously noticing ghost obsessions, it probably means you've been around my parents too long. Sam's at a bit of a disadvantage here-oof!"

Danny's eyes clenched shut as Sam's boot made contact with his shin.

"O _wwwwwww_! Seriously, Sam? It's _true_ , Tuck and I have known each other much longer, it's not our fault we went to different elementary schools!"

Sam glared at Danny before sitting down crisscrossed. The three were at Tucker's house, and Tucker's parents were out (again), doing… adult stuff. A date, or something. They didn't know, and they didn't really care.

Once Danny had finished his mild cursing of "dang it", and "what the heck, Sam!", he continued his explanation.

"Ghosts exist because of their obsessive nature, or something. I don't really know, I'm just repeating what Mom told me. When a person dies a violent death, or believe that they have unfinished business, ectoplasm will attach itself to the emotions released from death and create a ghost. In order for the ghost to keep existing, it must center the emotions it died on towards an obsession so that the emotions never fizzle out. The ghost cannot survive without an obsession, or something to focus their emotion on, because if the ghost loses that emotion, they will lose the ectoplasm that's giving them form and they will disappear forever. According to my ghost expert mother and father, at least."

"So, what you're basically saying, is that ghosts are leftover emotion from dead people that need an obsession to 'survive'," Sam clarified.

Danny merely nodded.

Tucker had taken the next logical step and asked,

"So, would that mean that Skulker's obsession is now hunting you?"

Danny almost started to laugh, but then his eyes widened and his faced paled enough to rival Sam's complexion.

"Ooooh, CRAP!"

* * *

"Danny, stop being such a drama queen and come out of the bathroom!"

"No! There's a freaking ghost out to get me, his VERY OBSESSION is _hunting me!_ "

Danny seemed to be making hyperventilating sounds, so Sam pounded some more on the door that blocked her from beating some sense into her best (crush) friend.

"And said ghost is the size of a frog! Delilah totally beat his big bad suit to a pulp, so he's out of the picture for a long time. You have nothing to worry about. You're being a wimp, Danny!"

 _That_ silenced the boy on the other side of the door. The lock turned and Sam faced Danny, who had opened the door slowly (and purposefully dramatically) and glared at Sam with a deadly expression that would be intimidating in his ghost form, but was simply adorable in his human form.

"Alright, now that you're out, we can discuss what we can do to prepare for when Skulker comes back. Honestly, Danny, locking yourself up in a bathroom is _not_ a good idea if you wanted to hide from a ghost. They can walk through walls, you know, and it's honestly just a little cliché, you know what I mean? It happens too often in horror movies. Come on."

Danny's eyes went from sky blue to toxic green. Sam didn't even flinch.

"Come on, you've had your 'woe is me' moment, let's go fix this situation."

Danny's eyes were blaring green at Sam's back the entire, short trip back to Tucker's room.

Speaking of the techno-geek, Tucker was silently saving what he had recorded on his PDA and chortling maliciously. Danny only had his focus on Sam, so Tucker was safe until Sam was about to turn around.

He had just settled in his original position on the floor, pretending to be pretending to be doing his homework (meaning he purposefully jumped a little when Sam and Danny entered his room) but ignoring what had happened.

Until Danny spoke, holding his hand out.

"PDA, Tucker, now."

Tucker pretended to be sad as he handed his PDA over to Danny, who immediately deleted the video he had just taken.

Thank goodness he had sent a copy to his email, otherwise, his precious blackmail material would be gone forever.

"So, what's the plan for when Skulker comes back?" Sam initiated.

"Have Danny beat the heck out of him?" Tucker asked.

Danny glared at his best friend, who was sensitive enough to flinch at Danny's ghost eyes.

"I seem to recall what happened very differently, _Tuck."_

"Hmm, he stole my PDA, was then trapped to our schedule, and we trapped him, and you beat the crap out of him, and my other PDA was impaled by an arrow. Now I have to use my older PDA until I finish my payments on those two so I can take out another loan for a newer PDA. That's what _I_ recall happening. Oh yeah, and Sam let out the gorilla."

Sam proceeded to flaunt her picture of the two boys before her hugging in their sleep. Danny groaned at the memory and Tucker's face flushed angrily at Sam's blatant flaunting of her blackmail material.

"The only reason we even managed to beat Skulker was because we had a humongous Purple-backed Gorilla on our side. _She's_ the one who beat up Skulker, not me," he retorted.

"Chill, dude. If Skulker is still using my PDA for his suit, I can easily hack into it and force him to go somewhere else," Tucker paused as he remembered that his current PDA was not up to date. "At least, once I get my new PDA. This one's an older model." He held up his current PDA, showcasing it to his friends.

"Right," Danny deadpanned.

"We need to intensify your training," Sam basically decided (as if the two boys had a choice, pfft).

"Noooooo!" both boys groaned as they realized what would be coming their way.

* * *

"I hate my life."

"I hate your half-life, too."

"Shut up. More push-ups."

"But Saaaam…"

"Honestly… Sam… how are you… even this… fit? OW!"

"You win your fights by punching, right? That means you need more muscle, hence, training."

Sam wasn't even breaking a sweat, and she was reaching fifty. (That might not be a lot for people like Dash and the other football players, but Sam's arms betrayed no sign of strong muscle and Danny and Tucker were only reaching twenty.)

"Fine. We do your part of the training for five more minutes, then we do ghost part training."

"Oooh, no, you're not getting away with just arms. We need to do core training, too. We don't really need to focus on your legs very much, though, so you're lucky with that. But once you reach fifty, we're going to do crunches."

"Do I have to-"

"Yes, Tuck: if _I_ have to suffer through this, then _you_ have to go through it, too. That's best friend rule number six."

The boys finished the push-ups and Sam forced them to go right into crunches. By the end of it, Danny's body was too sore to transform into ghost form (he didn't even understand _why_ ), so they decided to take a break by watching a horror movie.

By the time the movie was over, it was time to go home (because it was almost curfew), so no ghost training was accomplished that day.

Or the next day, because it was a Thursday and the three had school and homework that they didn't manage to finish by the time curfew was upon them.

Or the day after, because Danny was late to class (the Box-Ghost was good for misplaced aggression, but not in the morning when Danny was already running late) so he was forced to serve a detention for being late.

And the day after that, Danny was surprised to find _Dash_ of all people being tutored by his older sister in the kitchen.

After being nervous enough to accidentally turn intangible (thank goodness neither noticed), Danny decided that it would be better to flee and raced down to the lab, where he found his dad working on a project.

"Danny! Check out my newest ghost-grabbing technology!" Jack yelled, noticing Danny before he could make his escape. "It's the Ghost Weasel!"

Danny took a closer look at the 'Ghost Weasel' and realized… that it was the Fenton's new vacuum cleaner that they had bought to replace the other one they had used to make the Fenton X-tractor.

Jack continued his explanation of the invention.

"It collects ambient ghost energy and shoots it into the Ghost Zone!"

"Does it… work?" Danny immediately asked. If Danny had learned anything about the last invention, the Ghost Gabber (and all of his parents' inventions after the Portal Accident), it was that all of his parents inventions work on him.

Danny did not want to be 'shot into the Ghost Zone', so he took a big step back when it became apparent that Jack was about to fire the Weasel up.

It only succeeded in super sucking in all loose papers and the Fenton Thermos, which effectively blocked the mouth and prevented any more items from being sucked in.

Jack left to get something to remove the Thermos, but Danny had no patience for that, so he just flipped the switch to "reverse".

It removed the Thermos, but Danny was aiming it in the wrong direction. As chance would have it, the Thermos hit the "open" button for the Portal, which opened the large blast doors covering the Portal, which in turn, allowed a ghost entry to the human realm.

"Child!" The ghost wore a white ragged lab coat with bright green lab gloves. A pair of sunglasses covered his eyes and his white hair was slicked upward in a rather large, smooth 'poof'. "You have freed me!"

If Danny had been paying attention, he would have realized that the ghost sounded more grateful than evil at that point, even if the laugh at the beginning sounded a _little_ evil. But then again, Technus was trying to look impressive, cool, and hip (a little scarily like Mr. Lancer), so of course, flaming hands and dramatic introduction for the person that freed him from the Ghost Zone.

"Technus! Ghost Master of all Science and Electrical Technology!"

Danny… jumped to conclusions. Literally.

"Oh no you don't!" Danny dropped the Ghost Weasel (why didn't he just suck the ghost in just then?) and transformed mid-jump to address the new ghost, Technus, on the same level.

"You're not going to use the technology in this lab to take over the world!"

"Whaat?" the ghost was genuinely confused at Danny's statement before looking around the room. Apparently, the ghost liked Danny's suggestion (even though Danny didn't want the ghost to take over the world) and said,

"That's a great idea! Have you ever considered tutoring?"

Danny ignored the ghost and flew in quickly to (you guessed it) punch the ghost.

But the ghost quickly created an electric staff that shocked Danny as soon as he came within contact range.

The electricity coursing through Danny's veins felt too much like _that_ day, he felt like he was dying _again,_ and he did not like it _one bit._

What lasted two seconds felt much longer to Danny. Technus let Danny go (even though he could have electrocuted him for much longer) and the half-ghost flew back several yards to get away from the electric wand.

Danny saw the Ghost Weasel and decided to try it out.

The ghost (and remaining papers and other random pieces of ecto-technology) rushed towards the Ghost Weasel's mouth and overloaded it, resulting in an ectoplasmic explosion covering the entire lab with ecto-goo, with Danny holding a broken Ghost Weasel floating intangibly in the middle of the room.

"Danny! I'm coming back!" Danny would have felt his heartrate accelerate, but he was in his ghost form, so his heart wasn't exactly beating.

Danny _did_ feel the intense fear that his brain's amygdala triggered, though, which is why as soon as his father said,

"And I can't wait to see the lab exactly as I left it!"

Danny _fled._

 **A/N Sorry, again, for the delay, bit of writer's block, I hope I can go back to writing a chapter every couple of days and maybe even get a little ahead of schedule...**

 **Oh, who am I kidding, if I do write more than one chapter every couple of days, then I'll just post it immediately after editing because I'm impatient like that. Thanks for the reviews! :) (And Spider-Pig, who decided to use fear (of all things) to jump-start my brain again. Thanks for that...)**

 **I've also been working on the Batman/Danny Phantom crossover. I had to do a little plot redo and I was focusing more on that this past week, so I am (sort of) sorry for that as well. But... you know, life... I don't make money from this, it's a hobby that I enjoy...**

 **But thank you all for reading :)**


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N Distant Radiance: thank you so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it. Thank you for your vote of confidence, it sometimes gets a little intimidating reading other fanfictions and then comparing it to my own writing. Some people are just masters of phrasing, I guess. I do have ideas for going away from the main story-line point, but they're all so far away in the timeline…**

 **(It was a lovely review, you really present your constructive criticism in such a nice way, thank you so much!)**

Danny's cheek was resting on his fist as he discreetly (not so discreetly) admired Paulina from afar. Sam and Tucker were discussing… something, Danny had blocked out his friends' voices as soon as he saw Paulina walk in to "The Nasty Burger" and all Danny's brain could think about consisted of Paulina and how it would feel kissing her.

His attention wavered from Paulina when he saw Dash going around the joint inviting anyone above "nerd" status to his party that Saturday.

"HELLO?"

Danny's mind registered Tucker poking his shoulder and sighed.

"It's the biggest party of the year, and Paulina is going, and _I'm_ not, again."

[The author would like to remind all readers that being popular is _very_ important to high schoolers, especially upcoming freshmen, because a) being 'popular' means that you're accepted, which all teenagers crave, and b) the popular kids are the ones 'having fun' and are the ones that are 'happy', which is something every human longs for well past reaching adulthood. However, being 'popular' has its own negative quirks that the teens outside (and inside) of said 'popularity' don't recognize unless their maturity level is higher than usual, like Sam, in this case (Jazz, too, obviously, but she's not here at the moment, so out of sight, out of mind). Both Danny and Tucker are currently 14-year-old outsiders and therefore crave acceptance from their fellow peers. We (now) know that popularity is temporary and respect is everlasting, but at this point in time, Danny and Tucker do not know this fact and therefore cannot see past the gilded image popularity portrays. It should also be mentioned that ever since Danny's Accident with the Portal, he has even more reason to think of himself as a freak, therefore, being accepted by the 'popular' kids would _obviously_ make his world _infinitely_ better.]

Sam's eyebrow lifted at Danny's change in topic and successfully saw through the source of Danny's sudden _need_ for popularity.

Paulina.

Deep inside, Sam was a bit (lot) jealous that _Paulina, the shallow little witch,_ could do _no wrong_ in Danny's eyes.

She kept cool on the outside.

"I don't understand what you _see_ in her!"

"Are you kidding?"

Sam rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. Danny, naturally, did not notice: his attention was back on Paulina.

"She's only, like, perfectly _flawless_!"

Tucker ignored Danny's obvious pining over Paulina and Sam's less obvious pining over Danny ("you're right, she's a _goddess"_ ) and commented in perfect Tucker self-confidence.

"Why _don't_ we get invited to the really cool parties? We've got style, charm, good lucks- at least, _I_ do, anyway."

"Dream on, Tucker! On the social circuit, we're as invisible as Danny in his ghost mode," Sam straightened up as she continued. "Not that it'll matter five years from now, but we have each other, right?"

Wrong, apparently. Sam's moment of maturity (let's not pretend she isn't immature at times, she's only 14, too, while the female gender tends to mature faster than the male gender, they are still immature at 14) was ruined by Dash.

"Here!" Dash literally smacked an invitation in Danny's face. "Your sister made me invite you."

Both Sam and Tucker looked up expectantly at Dash. [It should also be mentioned that Dash's actions of inviting Danny in front of his friends and not invite them was extremely rude and bad hosting and should _not_ be taken as a role model for party hosts.]

" _Just you."_ Dash (once again) took advantage of his impressive height and towered over Danny, poking his shoulder _hard_ to accentuate each instruction he gave Danny.

" _Show_ up, _shut_ it, and _go home._ And nobody _gets hurt."_

Almost immediately, Danny seemed to be noticed more.

"Hey Danny!" a random blonde greeted Danny as she walked by. Kwan Lee, a popular football jock, greeted Danny by last name and proceeded to shout "party!" before walking away.

What really turned Danny's rational thinking off was Paulina waggling her fingers in a feminine, flirtatious way.

"See you Saturday, Danny!"

Danny was on top of the world.

"I-I'm _invited."_

Danny's eyes and smile widened.

"I've _arrived!"_

 _Swell._ Sam rolled her eyes at Danny's lack of foresight. "Send us a postcard from popularity-ville."

"I will!" Danny jumped up and quickly followed Paulina out of the restaurant.

 _I said that out loud?_

"You sure did, Sam." Tucker replied.

"I said _that_ out loud, too?!"

"Nah, it was just obvious that you were thinking it," Tucker didn't even look up from his PDA.

Sam groaned. More training for keeping her emotions off of her sleeve like the 'good' goth girl she was.

* * *

The social ladder of Casper High went something along this way: on the top were the A-listers: they were the pretty and rich kids that had enough money to be fashionable and enough looks to be influential. Below the A-listers were the popular kids, those that had enough money or enough looks without any weird relations or "uncool" habits or opinions. They consisted of sports-driven basketball or soccer or volleyball players that played a popular competitive sport that _wasn't_ football and the cheerleaders and dancers that weren't rich. The next tier were the arts students: these students were the ones that focused their hobbies on singing, acting, or drawing. If they played instruments, they played "cool" instruments, like the guitar or drums. These kids were considered "cool" and "popular".

The top tier of the underdogs consisted of the intelligent community, those that enjoyed mathematics and the hard sciences. Just below them were the writers, those that poured their emotions into poetry and short stories. If these teenagers were pretty or rich enough, they'd be considered "popular" and would stand at the bottom of the popular ladder.

Finally, towards the bottom of the pyramid were the geeks, the nerds, and the losers.

[Casper High was a small high school that had a large variety of small clicks: the geeks, nerds, and losers were the largest 'clicks' because they included the "orch dorks", "band geeks" and anybody else that weren't specified previously.]

And Sam was _very_ accurate when she described herself, Tucker, and Danny as invisible: they were at the bottom, lowest of the low, when it came to the social ladder.

Danny being invited to Dash's party had rocketed his social status (temporarily) to the bottom tier of popularity. It inflated his head and ego the next couple days to think and do of nothing but what is "in".

Sam and Tucker both found it to be highly annoying. All that Danny would do was say 'Hi' to random people that he barely even knew or talk to Dash, Kwan, or Paulina.

Kwan seemed to be the most genuine of the three, but that wasn't saying much.

As the week progressed, Danny started talking with the popular kids more than he spoke with his true friends. Sam and Tucker found that their opinion or advice went through one ear and out the other and quickly became tired of Danny ignoring them, even though he was clueless about what was happening.

Two days before "Da Dash Bash", Sam and Tucker decided to confront Danny about his behavior.

Of course, Danny ignored them but started freaking out about the "high-in, hip, and dash" sweat outfit that he had to wear to the party that he in _no way possible_ could afford to buy.

Sam was about to offer Danny money, but was abruptly cut off by Paulina. Danny immediately stopped listening (if he was even listening in the first place) to Sam and rushed over to where Paulina was sitting with a small radio.

"Ooookay, this is getting annoying," Sam muttered.

"You're telling me," Tucker murmured right back. They left Danny with Paulina and decided to simply have a movie night at Sam's place for their Saturday activity.

* * *

Which left Danny with the predicament of procuring money for the sweat outfit for the party.

The boy naturally asked his parents.

Danny could hear small snippets of his family's conversation in the kitchen. As he walked in, Jazz said,

"Great: you've figured out how to put the 'frank' back in 'Frankenstein'."

Danny had no clue what had just happened, and he honestly didn't want to know.

"Hey Dad, can you spare me some cash? I need to buy some clothes for Saturday."

"Danny, Danny, Danny- you know, as inventors, your mother and I have plenty of money,"

 _As long as we're successful and have investors._

"But as parents, we understand that _you_ need to understand the value of money. If you want money, you gotta earn it," Maddie added, rubbing her fingers together as she said the second "money".

Their recent success with the portal had many investors flock to their business, which in turn supplied them with enough money to _almost_ forget that they ever had financial problems.

"You mean," Danny was _horrified,_ "get a _job?"_

"That or sell something! Like your old comic books or some other junk you don't need!" Jack suggested.

Danny's mouth dropped open in absolute terror.

 _Sell my comic books?!_

"Uh, speaking of which, that old junk from the Ghost Weasel explosion needs to go in the shed: if there's _room._ That old barn hasn't been cleaned out in _years_." Maddie's childhood Southern accent always shone through when she was irritated or angry, and Maddie was _very_ irritated that Jack had a full barn of junk that nobody was using.

Jack was instantly on defense mode.

"This is _not_ _ **junk!**_ Every single item in this box is of vital importance to me!" He hugged the large box of junk to his face, close enough to his face to get a bit of ecto-goo on his cheek.

Maddie picked out a random piece of technological equipment that _wasn't_ splattered with goo and proceeded to ask,

"Do you even _know_ what this _is?"_

Jack observed the piece of junk, narrowing his eyes as the seconds passed.

"Haven't a clue. BUT, I know it's important, so it's off to the shed!" Jack reclaimed the unknown piece of tech (cough*junk*cough) and shoved the box he was holding into Danny's arms.

Danny and Jack quickly made the journey to the barn of a shed in their backyard (Danny stumbled several times for various reasons). The shed's shelves were long-since packed with forgotten technological equipment. When there wasn't any room left on the shelves, the floor had been arranged in a rather precarious Tetris stack from the back of the barn to the door, leaving only a few empty spaces for Danny and Jack to squeeze in the new junk.

"You know, maybe I _should_ get rid of some of this junk," Jack murmured. "WELL, that's a job for another day!"

Jack practically skipped out of the shed, leaving Danny alone to his thoughts.

 _Saturday's another day…_

Danny shut the door with a smirk on his face as he planned a way to get his parents out of the house by Saturday.

* * *

"Nooooo wayy," Sam groaned. She rubbed her temples as she sat on Danny's bed.

"You convinced your parents that there was a ghost conference in Indianapolis this weekend?" Tucker breathed.

It was Friday afternoon, and Danny had successfully found a way to get his parents away from the house for most, if not all, of Saturday, and Friday evening, and the half-ghost had just finished telling his friends his plan to get the money needed for the outfit for "Da Dash Bash".

"Actually, there _is_ a ghost conference there this weekend. Indianapolis has at least two haunted houses, and the visitors have recently claimed that they can not only _hear_ the screams of the dead, but can now also _see_ the dead that are screaming. The people holding the conference are trying to decide what to do about it," Danny explained, crossing his arms and (attempt to) lean casually against his desk. His foot turned slightly intangible, thereby making Danny slip and almost fall if he had not caught himself and slightly floated to prevent falling to the floor.

"And how did you pull _that_ off?" Sam accused.

"I found it on the internet." Danny smirked, very smug at the fact that there _happened_ to be an important emergency conference that very weekend.

"Serious?" Sam lifted her eyebrow.

"Dead serious."

Tucker burst out laughing, then wheezed,

"That's… very convenient… that it takes… three hours… to get… to… Indianapolis then…" Tucker sighed, then chuckled before swirling around Danny's chair again.

"With my dad's driving? It only takes them 2 hours, maybe even an hour and a half, to travel to Indianapolis," Danny smirked.

"Your parents are _both_ crazy drivers, it's a wonder you and Jazz managed to survive this long!" Tucker's voice acted up and squeaked at 'parents', but he had learned to live with and ignore the random moments when puberty decided to attack, so he wasn't embarrassed in the slightest.

"But in all seriousness, you're really holding a humongous yard sale tomorrow?" Sam could not believe Danny: he was going way out just to be cool at a party that nobody he knew very well would be going to (except for Dash, Paulina, and Kwan, and Sam knew that they were not real friends).

"It'll be fine, Mom would probably be ecstatic at the barn being cleaned out and it's on Dad's to do list," Danny was definitely trying to convince himself that selling his parents' stuff would be perfectly OK if he did all of the work (plus Sam and Tucker).

Both Sam and Tucker knew this. They just decided not to face the elephant in the room.

As soon as Danny's parents left for Indianapolis, the raven-haired freshmen and his two friends set to work on cleaning out the barn, determining what was trash and what could be sold.

Jazz knew what they were doing. She ignored them. Jack and Maddie would determine his punishment: Danny needed to learn an important lesson, and Jazz knew that the best way for him to learn that lesson was to learn it the hard way. So she ignored the three teenagers cleaning out the large barn in the Fenton backyard.

The next day, Danny, Tucker, and Sam did nothing but work from 5 AM to 3 PM. The three had set up a large banner advertising the sale, along with long tables surrounding the house by the street.

Danny had just sold a vacuum motor to Mr. Lancer when Sam came up and said, "Just sold a toaster," handing Danny a five. He quickly stuffed that and the ten he got from Mr. Lancer into his pocket.

"I'm pleased with the turnout today," Tucker smiled from the chair he was lounging in. "We're doing a really brisk business."

Danny had been counting through the large wad of cash he had in his pocket since the crowd had dwindled down a bit.

"I'm still twenty bucks short of what I need for those sweats!" Danny murmured.

"You're still welcome to hang with us tonight. Mega Movie Marathon at my place!" Sam offered again.

"Your place?" Danny was genuinely shocked, which made Sam glare at her best friend. "You've never invited us to _your_ place before!"

Sam rolled her eyes. Of course Danny wasn't listening when she had first offered.

" _That's_ because we're usually fighting ghosts with _you!"_ Sam took in a deep breath and decided it was time to let her friends know her big secret. "I figured it's time to-"

"HEY FENTINA!"

Danny immediately turned away from what Sam had been saying and walked to Dash with a huge grin on his face.

"-for you to totally ignore me for about the _billionth_ time this week."

Sam and Tucker rolled their eyes at each other as Danny kissed Dash's butt selling him the computer stuff.

Sam decided _not_ to tell Danny. She'd tell Tucker and they'd have an awesome time _without_ Danny, who was about to leave for the mall.

"You guys don't mind cleaning up for me, do ya? Great! See ya!"

And just like that, Danny was gone.

Sam was not impressed.

"So now we're his clean-up crew, too?" She turned to face Tucker, who had somehow managed to teleport to the other side of the street.

"See you tonight!" he called before turning around the corner.

"Ugh, stupid boys," Sam grumbled as she started cleaning up.


	22. Chapter 22

Danny was in a wonderful mood. Being late October, the sun had long since set a little after six, and it was almost seven. The party started at 7:30, so Danny had about 15 minutes once he got home to shower and get ready for the party before he needed to leave in order to make it "on time" which would be "fashionably late".

He was going at the fastest speed that he could, which was about 20 mph; that might not be a lot for a car, but it was faster than walking.

True, technically he could _fly_ , but he'd have to carry the speeder with him if he did, and that seemed like too much effort.

It is unnecessary to describe how excited Danny was.

 _Popularity, here I come!_

Danny's grin stretched wide across his face and could not be removed.

He was just two blocks from his house when, of all things, a ghost _hair cutter_ attacked him.

It was almost embarrassing to nearly be cut to ribbons by a _hair cutter_ , but Danny ignored the troubling attack and continued on home after he had defeated the ghost-clipper.

* * *

Danny had unfortunately planned on going to the party _with Jazz_ , so he had timed getting ready thinking that he and Jazz would _drive_ to Dash's house.

It was not so.

"But you're the only reason Dash invited me!"

"Not caring!" Jazz shrugged as she moved to exit the kitchen.

The siblings heard their father from the backyard shout… something.

Oh dear: their parents were back.

"Aaand… not staying," Jazz added.

There was no way she'd stay in a house with a crazed-up Jack Fenton. She'd go out and buy herself dinner (from the money she made tutoring) and read a book in a park, or somewhere else that was far away from home that was _peaceful._

Jack made it from the backyard to the kitchen faster than Danny could think _ghost._

"Someone raided the junk shed while we were away!" Jack towered over Danny, his fright clear on his face (both their faces). He grabbed Danny by the shoulders and exclaimed,

"DANNY! DID YOU SEE ANYTHING?!"

"Uhhh…" Danny, at this point, was still not used to lying to his parents. "No, no, uhh…. Not a thing!"

Jack, the loving soul he was, set Danny down, even though it was obvious he was lying; Jack, however, did not notice because why would Danny lie to him?

As soon as Danny was free of his father's grasp, he started backing out of the kitchen.

"Buut, we should compare notes once I get home from the party... Bye!"

And Danny was out before Jack could shout, "GHOST!".

Since Jazz was _obviously_ not going to the party, Danny was left with walking: his scooter needed to recharge and would not make the journey to and from Dash's house (and Danny forgot he could fly until he was half-way there).

Which made Danny late: and it was _not_ the fashionable kind.

To add to his horror, the party theme had changed from "High-in, Hip, and Cool" to "Loser Chic", and Danny had been the only one out of the loop.

It was very odd seeing the popular kids dress up as… nerds, geeks, and, well, losers. Paulina had tried to mimic Sam's goth style, and was _rocking_ the look, even though it didn't match her personality _at all_.

Danny was _very_ uncomfortable, and it didn't help that he was sticking out like a sore thumb: everybody at the party were dressed as nerds, hipsters, geeks, punks, goths, etc.

It was the type of clothing styles Danny was used to. Tucker was a very mild hipster, with his beret and choice in glasses, and Sam was a mild goth chic: she didn't go all out with piercings in strange places- her parents would never allow it. She'd probably get a belly button piercing when she became older, but until then, she'd stick with her ears being pierced.

Seeing the popular kids mock the unpopular kids by _actually looking good in what said unpopular kids wore_ made Danny _very_ uncomfortable, and rather ticked off. He was wearing what was nationally considered "cool" and they still turned their nose on him: nothing would ever be _good enough._ There was nothing Danny could do to be considered "cool".

The realization struck Danny hard. He missed Sam and Tucker and wished that he was with them instead of Dash's _stupid_ party.

 _I'm an idiot,_ Danny thought to himself. _What am I even doing here?! These people aren't my friends._

Danny slumped up the stairs, looking for an empty, quiet place to be, away from the judging stares and snobby rich kids.

 _I wish Sam and Tucker were here._

As Danny passed a random closed door, his ghost sense decided to go off.

 _That's odd…_

Despite the door being closed, Danny decided to open it (his ghost sense went off! How could he not? Even though it is extremely rude when in another person's house to open closed doors that _obviously_ isn't the restroom.)

It was a good thing that Danny ignored general etiquette, for within what seemed to be Dash's bedroom was a floating computer. That happened to be laughing very similarly to the weird Techno-ghost Danny had encountered a week earlier. The computer was soon joined by a washing machine and several other glowing pieces of technology from outside the house, flying in through Dash's window.

And built a humanoid android-looking figure before Danny's widening eyes in mere moments.

"I AM TECHNUS! MASTER OF ALL THINGS MECHANICAL! And once I complete my construction, YOU WILL ALL SUCCUMB TO MY AWESOME PO-"

Technus stopped his "introduction" due to a glitch, which relieved Danny and worried Technus.

"What is _wrong_ with me?!" the ghost cried out once he regained control of his mechanical body.

Danny's eyes escaped Technus's cameras serving as eyes and flitted around the room, taking in his surroundings. He immediately noticed the upgrade disc laying on Dash's pillow.

And figured that Technus knew about the upgrade.

"Oooh, no, you are _not_ getting that upgrade disc and making yourself more powerful!" Danny transformed into his ghost form, completely ready for a fight with the malfunctioning ghost.

Danny's stupid "hero speech", however, only served to work against him, _again._

"What?" The ghost only took half a second to process what Danny had said, compared to the three seconds it took when they had met a week before. " _Another_ great idea! Forget tutoring, _you_ should be a _teacher!"_

Technus's form of banter was… very bland. Danny wasted no energy in coming up with a counter-pun, and instead focused on reaching the upgrade before Technus did. Said ghost retaliated by forming an ectoblast from a toaster-turned-gun, which hit Danny _hard_ in the chest.

 _Ghost toast?! That's going to leave a mark!_ Danny thought as he focused on becoming intangible.

It only lasted long enough for Danny to pass through a closet door, where he was _very_ lucky to land among a bunch of letterman jackets and… were those _teddy bears?!_

 _I don't even want to_ _know_ _,_ Danny thought as he quickly flew through the closet door and headed straight for Technus, cannon-balling onto the ghost and thereby breaking the bed the upgrade was laying on in two.

Technus cried out as he hit the bed, but immediately struck his arm out and swatted Danny away.

"You are a formidable opponent," Technus admitted, "but a little wet behind the ears!"

As previously stated, Technus's sense of humor was… awful.

"Perhaps you could use a little… drying up!"

The pun _would_ have been OK… if it weren't for the fact that the machine that comprised of Technus's chest was a washing machine, and _not_ a dryer.

But, bad sense of humor or no, Danny still ended up inside the tumbler and quickly became very dizzy. After a few turns, Technus spat Danny out, giving the boy more momentum, making the crash into Dash's dresser hurt even more.

Rage spurred within Danny, and with a high-pitched roar, he slammed into Technus right before the ghost was about to use the upgrade.

Somehow, the impossible happened, and the disc ended up inside Technus, allowing the ghost to upgrade his software and (obviously) become more powerful.

Danny knew the situation had just become a _whole lot worse._ With another high-pitched yell, the 14-year-old flew into Technus, turning both intangible, and thereby taking the fight _away_ from Dash's house. The two ended up in an alley between Dash's house and the neighbor's house, where Technus started gathering more technology, making him larger and even _more_ powerful (because ghost logic here dictates that the more you have of your obsession, the more powerful you become, and Technus had a _lot_ of technology on him).

Danny tried his best to prevent the technology from merging with Technus, but by then he was no match for the Master of all Technology. He was quickly backhanded away and hit the back of another house, creating a Danny-sized indent in the brick layout.

It was then Danny realized that Sam and Tucker were right there in front of him.

"Hey Sam… Hey Tuck… glad you could make it," was all Danny could get out before he lost consciousness.

* * *

Sam and Tucker had not gotten very far in watching an Asian-based movie when they realized that there was a ghost situation, but that was mostly because Tucker would _not_ shut _up_ and stop asking Sam questions like,

"This is your _downstairs?"_ and "Woah, time out… You're _loaded?!"_ and "You're the deli-toothpick cellophane-twirling _heiress?!"_ along with "Could you buy a plane? A yacht? A bowling alley?" and, the most important one, "With all this money, why do you hang with me and Danny?" with which Sam had answered with disdain towards popularity and that was that.

When the remote Sam had bought at Danny's yard sale started floating and sending out ghost blasts that ruined the Manson's popcorn machine and soda dispenser, the Goth and the Techno Geek immediately followed the ghost-remote to Dash's house, where they had gleefully realized that Danny would be in the middle of the ghost situation and would _not_ be having fun at the party.

However, all humor and vengeance fled from their faces when they both saw Technus for the very first time.

The ghost was as tall as the buildings around him, which said _a lot,_ because they were in a rich neighborhood, and all of the houses, even though they were boring and rather 'cookie-cutter-ie', had at least three floors, which did _not_ include the basement.

When Technus realized that he had a new audience, he proceeded to introduce himself.

"I AM TECHNUS! MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESTROYER OF WORLDS!"

It is assumed that Technus said "worlds", but the teens could not really tell because the ghost could not pronounce his 'r's. The strange speech impediment, however, did not stop Sam and Tucker's mouths from dropping open in fright and awe at the ghost's size.

"BEHOLD MY AWESOME ELECTRONIC FURY!"

Danny had, by this point, woken up and immediately flew to defend his friends from the ghost. Technus, however, had reinforced his armor and Danny could now do nothing against him: every punch and kick did nothing but annoy Technus, who eventually swatted Danny into the ground as if he were nothing more than an annoying gnat.

"Guys?! _Help!"_ Danny immediately flew up to Technus and started his barraging attacks again, which did nothing but _annoy_ Technus, _again._

Sam and Tucker ignored Danny with absolute _glee._

"Come on, guys!" Danny fell towards the ground again, but stopped himself and flew back up again.

"Guys, come on! Seriously!" Danny's voice squeaked again, but he ignored it and kept attacking the truly towering ghost that Danny could not harm.

As Danny parried and evaded the ghost's swats, ectoblasts, and pincers, he screamed out,

"I'm sorry I chose hanging with the popular kids over you guys, it was _stupid_ and _shallow, and I'll_ _ **never do it again!"**_

Technus finally managed to hit Danny, who plummeted towards the asphalt and hit the ground right in front of Sam and Tucker.

Sam smirked and placed her hands on her hips.

"How can we be of assistance?"

Danny did not look a gift horse in the mouth.

"He's running an old version of Portal's XL," Danny explained as he forced himself up from the ground, groaning as he did so. Tucker's brain went into overdrive as he planned a way to infiltrate the ghost's software with his PDA while Sam scoffed.

"That piece of vaporware? It's the _worst_ software, _ever!"_

"Keep him busy! I think I know how you can beat him!" Tucker commanded.

Danny was good with that. Time for some lovely puns. He flew up to face Technus and… his mind drew a blank.

"Get _back!_ You… hunk of my Dad's _junk!"_

It was… better than Technus's pun, but that wasn't saying much.

"Could your dad's junk do _this?"_

As Danny distracted the ghost, Tucker quickly attempted to bypass the security system: the upgrade, however, prevented Tucker from gaining control of the system. When Danny realized that the ghost wasn't shutting down any time soon, he shouted to Tucker.

"Tucker! Any day now would be _great!"_

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Tucker shouted back.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked.

Tucker explained the situation, to which Sam asked,

"What do we do?"

"I need the latest version of Portal XL! But we're not going to be able to get it at this time of night!"

"Leave it to me!" Sam pulled out a flip phone and quickly dialed a number. (Meanwhile, Danny was being tossed around like a dog's plush toy.) Sam led Tucker out to the street in front of Dash's house and waited.

A few minutes after Sam finished her call, a pretty blond woman that seemed to be in her mid-twenties drove up to Sam and Tucker in a scooter and gave them what they needed, completely ignorant of the ghost fight happening right behind the house in front of her.

When the lady, "Tracy", left, Sam left Tucker with the tech and decided to help Danny with distracting the ghost.

"Um, excuse me!" she called out. She was successful: she had gained the ghost's full attention.

"Uhhhh, I'm Sam…. I, uh, don't believe I've caught your name?" Sam had _definitely_ caught the ghost's name. "Perhaps you should… scream it really loud and… shout out your motive!"

"Hello," Technus muttered to himself, before (being the dramatic personality he was) dramatically throwing his arms out wide and proclaiming, "I AM TECHNUS! MANIPULATOR OF MACHINES! LORD OF ALL GADGETRY!" and so on. This left Danny with enough time to recover from being nothing more than a rag doll for several minutes and Tucker enough time to download the new version of Portal XL and hack into Technus's armor.

"Go on…" Sam continued, "Isn't there more you'd like to tell me?"

"Oh, _yes!"_ the ghost exclaimed, "I am also-"

Technus was interrupted by a sudden glitch in his systems as Tucker gained control over the armor.

"What's happening?" Danny asked, still trapped in Technus's grapple two stories high.

"Portal XL is happening!" Tucker shouted up to his best friend. "Everybody knows that every new version of Portal's XL has gigantic hole in its security system!"

Technus heard this (unfortunate) bit of news.

"What?! NOOOO!" Technus lost his grip on Danny, who immediately grabbed the grapple and stuffed it inside the opening where the XL upgrade had landed in.

"Process _this!"_

The grapple's energy that had previously been attacking Danny was now redirected to Technus's core.

"Wait! That doesn't go there!"

Danny knew that: it was why he put it there.

Technus's armor was quickly fried, effectively shutting down the suit. Tucker threw the Fenton Thermos he had nipped from Fentonworks while following the ghost tech to Dash's house at Danny, who caught it and forced Technus out of the suit and into the Thermos.

Without Technus's ghostly power keeping the technology together, the three-story hunk of tech quickly fell apart, leaving Danny, Sam and Tucker with all of the junk they had sold at the yard sale that morning in front of them.

"Nice going, Tuck!" Sam complimented.

"Don't thank me, thank lousy software!" Tucker grinned.

The three contemplated the mess in front of them.

"I don't know about you, but I am _not_ cleaning all of this up by myself," Sam glared at the two boys next to her, who both blushed with shame.

"Right… sorry, Sam," Danny apologized.

"Yeah, sorry, Sam…" Tucker added.

The three friends took several trips to haul the tech back to Jack's shed (Danny checked to make sure his dad was busy before they started, which he was: believe it or not, it _does_ take a while to secure an entire house with a very unique Fenton security system). Danny nabbed two nets and flew back to Sam and Tucker, who had started to sort through the junk by size. Danny laid out both nets and the three worked on filling one up, which Danny flew back to Fentonworks and dumped in the shed while Sam and Tucker worked on filling up the other net. Danny had to make four trips just to get all of the tech back to Fentonworks, then he flew both Sam and Tucker back so they could help cram all of the junk back in the shed.

Needless to say, all three were exhausted Sunday and did not see each other again until Monday morning, right before classes started.

"So, what's the verdict?" Tucker immediately asked.

"No, no verdict," Danny admitted. "I didn't tell Dad that I took his junk, so he's checking every piece for government surveillance."

It was very irresponsible of Danny to not tell his parents, but it was just one of his _many_ secrets that he's now keeping from his parents.

"Sounds like you got off pretty easily," Sam complimented. Despite the fact that Sam and Tucker disapproved of Danny selling his Dad's junk, they didn't want their friend grounded, so if they could get away with it, they'd take it.

"Well, I still have to return the sweats so I can refund everybody's money," Danny added. "And… I still feel terrible about the way I treated you guys…"

Danny sighed before redirecting his gaze to his shoelaces.

"Of all people, I should _know_ how it feels to be invisible."

Sam was incredibly smug at Danny's apology. She smirked at Danny knowingly as she casually leaned against the locker next to her.

"So, you would say you've learned a lesson from all of this?"

Danny smirked as he saw Dash opening his locker a few feet away.

"Yeah, I think I have," Danny grinned maliciously. The three laughed as Dash was flooded by a bunch of teddy bears.

 _Thank you ghost powers for this awesome prank._

Sam's laughter was cut off when she heard someone in their grade say,

"I heard we're dissecting frogs in Biology next week…"

Sam's eyebrows furrowed and she aimed a glare at her peer's back, who shuddered without knowing why.

 _Not if I can help it._


	23. Chapter 23

**I skipped Splitting Images, FYI: this chapter starts a couple days after. In case some couldn't tell.**

"You have to admit it, though, Sydney Pointdexter did have a point about how you've been using your powers, lately," Sam reminded Danny for the _millionth_ time that week.

"Sam! I know! You don't have to remind every two seconds! I get it!" Danny growled, slamming his new locker (still next to the band room) shut. "I'm not using my powers to bully, anymore."

"Or prank?"

Danny groaned.

"Or prank," he confirmed.

"Or checking out the girls' locker room?" Tucker piped in, eyes never leaving his new PDA.

"What? I- I wouldn't _do_ tha-" Danny noticed Sam glowering at him, "-anymore…"

Danny's punishment was a steel-toed kick to the shin, curtesy of Sam Manson.

"I said 'anymore', Sam, what more do you want?!" Danny whimpered, hopping on one foot, seeing as the other was currently feeling pins and needles.

"Your powers make you unique, but they also put a lot more responsibility on your shoulders!" the goth chick scolded, hands placed on her hips. "And you're being _very_ immature going about and using them to _prank_ people!"

"Can't you let a guy have any fun, Sam?" Danny retorted right back.

"Nope," she popped the p, turned and walked away, removing Danny's chance to have the last word.

"Is she being serious?" Danny asked Tucker, setting his foot down (which had finally gained feeling again).

"She doesn't know how to have fun, she's a girl," the boy responded.

"Well, that's not very nice, Tuck."

"Well, she didn't want to go to the carnival this weekend, and she's been a mother-hen recently, _and_ she's been complaining about my meat sandwiches again…"

"Tuck, she complains about us eating meat _all_ the time, it isn't exactly new," Danny defended their female friend.

"Well, she's been doing it a lot more often!" the techno-geek argued back.

"Look, maybe it's just… girl stuff, you know? Stuff that we'll never really understand," Danny offered, his hands moving around, showing his obvious discomfort.

"Girl stuff?"

Danny's eyes widened before closing as he groaned, suddenly remembering that Tucker was an only child and therefore probably didn't know about _girl stuff_ , the way Danny had to unfortunately hear about when he was eleven, which was about the time Jazz started… said _girl stuff._

When Jazz was a little over thirteen, she began complaining more about cramps and headaches. There was a day when Jazz had woken up hysterical and screaming for their mother, who had taken the panicking teenager into the bathroom immediately and locked the door, so whatever they had discussed in there wasn't revealed to Danny. Until he asked his mom a week later what had been going on with his older sister, and had, unfortunately, received the scientific version of what was happening, which Maddie had realized (too late) was something that Danny _did not_ need to know about in such detail.

Eleven-year old Danny's brain had gone through the information he had received that day and locked away most of what he had learned in a mental box called "Girl Stuff". And he'd never opened it since.

Until Danny realized that Tucker did _not_ know about _girl stuff_. All of the information his mother had told him was suddenly swarming through his brain, causing Danny to blush a deep red.

"Danny? Why's your face so red?" Tucker asked, concerned that his friend's head might explode from the heavy blood flow.

"You know," Danny's voice squeaked, making him want to clear his throat. He coughed a little, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, then spoke again, not meeting Tucker's eyes. "Maybe you should ask your mom… It's not something that we should talk about out here… in the open…"

This only confused Tucker even more, since there was hardly _anything_ they didn't talk about 'in the open', as Danny had called it, even his ghost powers: they were just highly discreet when talking about his powers 'out in the open' (they really weren't). What secret was so important that it couldn't even be discussed in an empty corridor where they had just been talking about Danny's ghost powers?

"OK…" Tucker agreed, hesitantly. "I will…"

And the two parted, one very confused and the other _extremely_ embarrassed.

The next day, Danny found Tucker practically traumatized.

"Daniel James Fenton, you are _very_ cruel," he stuttered out. He held out his hand, which was shaking. "My hands haven't stopped shaking since last night!"

" _I'm_ cruel?! What makes _me_ the one that's _cruel?"_ Danny defended himself, then pointed an accusing finger at Tucker. " _You're_ the one that wanted me to _talk_ about it!"

"Well, better _you_ than my _parents!"_ Tucker silently screeched. "I did _not_ need to know about that!"

"Did they give you the full scientific details?" Danny asked, one eyebrow raised in a challenging manner. There was no way Tucker's _Talk_ had gone as bad as Danny's.

Tucker's answer was his eyes widening in dread. He glanced at Danny and remembered the fact that the Fentons were scientists.

"Oh man, I feel for you. How long have you known?"

"Since we were eleven."

Tucker groaned, then dramatically clutched the left side of his chest.

"So _young_ to have your innocence stripped from you!"

"OK, Tuck, that's enough. Seriously, though, your parents never told you about it?"

"No, I think they were embarrassed talking about it, too. Maybe they were hoping the school would tell us about it."

" _That_ would be awful, why would you do that? 'Here, let's take all these immature teenagers and put them together in a room and talk about-'"

Tucker slapped his hand against Danny's mouth, "Don't you dare say another word, Danny, it's embarrassing enough just thinking about it."

Which was the scene Sam walked in to that morning.

"Embarrassing thinking about what?" she asked, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. Danny and Tucker's eyes both widened in dread, and the two boys' brains scrambled to think of an excuse, anything _besides_ what they had just been talking about.

"Ummm," Tucker's hand slipped from Danny's mouth.

"Eerrrmmmm," Danny's hand found its way to the back of his neck.

"Ha-hey, Sa-Sam," Tucker managed.

"We… er… we were just talking about…" Danny glanced over at Tucker, "the time you caught us…"

Tucker's hand found its way back to Danny's mouth, who tried to speak through Tucker's mouth but found it impossible.

"Not. Another. Word, Danny," Tucker warned. Sam just rolled her eyes and let the subject drop.

"Did you study for the English test?"

"What English test?" Tucker asked, suddenly hysterical for another reason.

"The one on _Pride and Prejudice_ … the book we've been reading these past two months…" Sam couldn't believe that Tucker had forgotten about the biggest test they'd had so far that year.

"Oh, yeah, that… English test…" Danny stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck even more nervously.

"Are you guys serious? How did you forget that that test was today?"

"Ummm," both Danny and Tucker eyed each other, wondering how they were going to provide a good enough excuse _and_ pass the test that they'd forgotten to study for.

"We… forgot?" Tucker offered.

Sam groaned as she facepalmed herself.

"I'm _surrounded_ by _idiots!_ "

"Hey, we're not _that_ bad!" Danny defended (again. He's been doing that a lot lately).

"Yeah, we're not _that_ bad!" Tucker added. "I'm good with computers and hacking and that stuff! And Danny's got… Danny's smart… OK, you got me there, Danny's clueless, but _I'm_ smart!"

"Tuck!" Danny screeched.

"Well, it's true! You're clueless!" Tucker argued back.

"I'm not _that_ clueless!"

"Mr. Fenton and Mr. Foley, please remember you're on school property: there's no need to shout. If I catch you causing anymore disturbances, you will both receive detention," Mr. Lancer's voice boomed from the other side of the hall.

The three friends turned and saw Mr. Lancer's head poking out of his office, annoyance clear on his face.

"Sorry, Mr. Lancer," Sam apologized across the empty hallway. "We'll head to class now." She moved to push the two boys away from Tucker's locker and towards their English class, which was on the other side of the school. Classes didn't start for another twenty minutes, so the room was empty except for one redhead loner sitting in the back, her face hidden behind a battered copy of _Pride and Prejudice_.

"Sarah's got the right idea," Sam said as they entered the room. She forced the two boys to sit and commanded, "Start reading."

The boys diligently obeyed.

* * *

Danny had just finished two-thirds of his test when his spine shivered and his esophagus cooled to ice, making his breath frost out in light, cold blue mist.

 _Ghost… but test… but ghost…_

Danny's eyes flickered up to Mr. Lancer, who was deeply engrossed in _Crime and Punishment._ He looked down and memorized the last question on the quiz (long-answer questions here), which was,

 _Determine and argue which is worse: pride or prejudice? Provide two quotes to back your opinion._

Then raised his hand. When Mr. Lancer didn't see Danny's hand raised, he started waving it frantically. Finally, he got up and walked up the desk at the front of the classroom, where Mr. Lancer finally took notice of the student.

"Did you have a question, Mr. Fenton?"

"Can I use the restroom? It's… really urgent," Danny faked a grimace and tightened his legs, hoping it was convincing enough. "I promise I'll hurry as fast as I can."

"We're in the middle of a test, Mr. Fenton, you should have gone before we started."

Danny's grimace was real that time, which convinced Mr. Lancer to let the boy go.

"Don't make any other stops on the way," he sighed, before turning back to _Crime and Punishment._ Danny's older sibling, Jazz, was providing many new insights in their class's Socratic discussions that left Mr. Lancer with the need to reread the novel again… and again… and again, before he _finally_ understood what the brilliant girl had seen.

Danny left with a quick thank you, hurrying out the door as if a demon was running after him.

As soon as Danny was in the bathroom stall, he transformed into his ghost half and flew out of the room invisibly, following the uncomfortable cold feeling until it became so numb that it didn't bother him anymore.

This was where he'd found himself facing… the Box Ghost. Again.

This time, the Box Ghost had raided a UPS truck that was just driving up to Casper High.

"You again? Seriously? Can't you attack at night, or something, when I'm _not_ in the middle of an English test?" the ghost boy groaned.

"THERE WILL BE NO TAKING OF ENGLISH TESTS! FOR I, THE _BOX GHOST_ , WILL SUFFUCATE YOU WITH THE DELIVERY FOR… W. LANCER AT CASPER HIGH SCHOOL!" The Box Ghost lifted a large and heavy looking box that was, probably, filled with books.

"Oh great, now I've got to save my future homework from the _Box Ghost,_ " Danny muttered. He caught the quickly approaching box that seemed to weigh fifty pounds (it was only thirty), flying back from the momentum the crate forced on to the ghost boy. Danny flew against the box as hard as he could, which slowed the momentum and allowed the ghost boy to carefully set down Mr. Lancer's delivery before flying up to the Box Ghost and punching the blue ghost in the gut.

The overall-wearing ghost retaliated by sending two other boxes directly at Danny, also for Mr. Lancer, both of which weighed the same amount as the previous box.

Danny was not as lucky that time. The force of nearly sixty pounds traveling at 80 mph crushed the air out of his lungs and _may_ have bruised his ribs a bit.

At the least the packages were miraculously still intact.

"All right, that's it!"

Five minutes later left Danny with a hard bump on his head and a few throbbing ribs, but the Box Ghost was in the Thermos and that was all that mattered. He flew back to the bathroom and changed back to his human form, groaning as the ectoplasm retreated from his body and further into his core, which left his muscles aching from the fight. He hurried back to the classroom, apologizing profusely for taking so long, and hurrying through the last question in the five minutes he had left.

Mr. Lancer was not pleased that Danny had taken his time, but let him off with a warning as the rest of the class were saved by the bell.

"Next time you decide to spend fifteen minutes in the bathroom, Mr. Fenton, and you'll be serving detention with Coach Tetslaff."

Danny gulped before answering,

"Sorry, Mr. Lancer, it won't happen again!"

And promptly fled the room.

But it would happen again. Danny knew it would, but he knew that there wasn't anything he could do to prevent it. He'd face the consequences. It was the responsibility his powers left him with.

Danny shook his head, confused by the sudden headache starting to pound in his skull.

Sam noticed the boy next to her rubbing his temples.

"You feeling alright, Danny?"

"Not really, but it's just a headache, I'm sure it'll go away soon."

Sam's answer was cut off by a sneeze.

"Bless you!" Tucker, once again, did not look up from his PDA.

"You sure you don't want to come to the carnival with us this afternoon, Sam?" Danny asked.

"No, I thought I told you, my parents are forcing me to go to Chicago with them for an important _dinner_ with other snobs," she replied. Both Danny and Tucker grimaced at the thought of formal social activity with boring _old_ people.

"We'll get you something there, then, for you to look forward to when you come back tomorrow," Tucker offered.

"Thanks, Tuck, that's surprisingly sweet of you," the female third of their group complimented/mocked.

"If there's anything I _do_ know how to do, it's being smooth with the ladies," Tucker grinned, until he remembered his conversation with his parents the evening before. He blushed, which usually was rather difficult to see because of his dark skin, but was currently _very_ visible. Danny noticed Tucker's blush and immediately knew what he was thinking about and his face flushed as well.

Luckily for the two of them, Sam was walking ahead of them and thereby did not notice the two boys behind her trying to control the amount of blood flowing through their cheeks. She laughed at Tucker's comment.

"Tucker, you wouldn't know the difference between suave and creeper."

"Hey!"

Danny chuckled at Sam's comment, which earned him a hit on the shoulder from Tucker's fist.

"At least I'm not clueless, like _Danny!"_

"Oooh, buurn!"

"Be quiet, Tucker, at least I…" Danny's brain was drawing a blank "wasn't rejected by every girl in school!"

Sam nearly died from laughter. The hipster techno-geek glared at Danny, then smirked as he pulled up a picture on his PDA.

Danny's face quickly lost its blood circulation as he realized that Tucker was showing him the embarrassing situation just a few days prior where he'd fallen into a box of costumes for the school's play that year, _My Fair Lady_ , from a fight with the Box Ghost.

"You know, Danny, you look pretty good as a girl," Sam's grin was positively demonic. "Maybe you should try out drag, sometime."

"Can we _please_ change the topic?" Danny was too embarrassed to even come up with a good comeback. "Let's just get to Algebra."

He walked ahead, completely aware of Sam and Tucker snickering behind him.

* * *

"I hope you don't get _too_ bored with your parents tonight, Sam," Danny said as the three walked down Casper High's front steps.

"Ugh, it's inevitable, but I appreciate it, Dann- _achoo!"_ Sam rubbed her tingling nose with the back of her hand. "I think I might be coming down with something. Maybe by the time I get home, it'll be bad enough to convince my parents that I _can't_ go."

"But you hate being sick, Sam," Tucker reminded her.

"Better sick here than _there_ ," the girl retorted. "I'll see you guys later."

Danny and Tucker watched her walk the way towards her house before turning around and walking in the opposite direction towards the carnival.

"I hope she feels better soon," Danny mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"She'll be fine, it's probably just a cold," Tucker rationalized, "I wonder if there'll be anything new in the carnival this year."

"Probably not, but we still go every year!" Danny grinned.

The two best friends' walk was filled with playful banter and jokes. When they reached the carnival, their joking shifted from school and the people they knew to the various cheap goods on sale in the brightly-colored stalls. After purchasing a set of skate wheels (that they'd share), Tucker's eye fell on an old gypsy with a rather large mole and a snaggle-tooth (and wearing too much pink) selling a variety of genie-lamps.

"Genie in a bottle?" he picked an intricate, golden lamp. "I don't think so." He set it down, and the two boys continued exploring the wares, wincing when they heard a little girl start begging her mother for cotton candy behind them.

A couple minutes later, Danny's spine chilled, signifying a ghost was near.

And all hell broke loose, curtesy of cotton candy. The people in the surrounding area began shrieking and running around like a bunch of decapitated chickens, being overrun by hot, spun sugar.

Both Danny and Tucker stood their ground in the chaos around them.

"I'm going ghost!" Danny warned Tucker, who held a thumbs-up and watched his friend fly away towards a (hot) green-skinned ghost that appeared to be from the Middle East 3rd century.

The ghost noticed Danny approaching and held her arms out with her palms up.

"I am Desiree: what is your wish?" she asked in a proud, yet humble manner.

"None of your business, candy-pants!" Danny was obviously not in the mood for banter, since his puns seemed to be under-par.

The ghost, Desiree, wasn't even fazed.

" _Surely,_ there must be _something,"_ the ghost stretched her hand out towards Danny's heart, hand slightly glowing. Danny felt very uncomfortable with the ghost invading his private space, so he backed away and shouted,

"Get away!"

What Danny didn't know was that the ghost, Desiree, would have seduced him under her will had his ghost core not been strong enough to withstand her core's reaching tendrils. Granting human's their wishes was like building a structure from Lego bricks: her power could be broken, or taken away, and it took a while to build anything. However, granting a ghost's wish was like building a structure from bricks and mortar: taking away the power she gained from granting one ghost's wish would take much longer and would be much more difficult.

He raised his right arm, preparing to slap the ghost away if she decided to get any closer, and felt energy flow through his arm.

Suddenly, an impulse overcame the ghost boy and instead of keeping his arm prepped for a punch, he aimed his hand towards Desiree and something hot blasted from his hand and hit the black-haired ghost directly in the stomach. The force from the blast was apparently enough to send her flying far back (crying out in surprise) and towards the large city, Elmerton, which could be seen from several miles away because of the tall skyscrapers within its downtown.

 _What the heck?! What's going on?_ Danny looked down at his hand, astounded at what had just happened, then jumped (even though he was still in midair) as he realized that his hand was on _fire._ Green flames licked his hand, but did not seem to be hurting him. Danny could feel something within his chest releasing some sort of energy through his arm and into his hand.

"Is this a new ghost power?" he wondered out loud.

Before he could consider it any further, he heard his best friend call out from the now empty carnival.

"That was _slamming!"_ Tucker was beyond excited: Danny's ghost powers were _so_ cool, and they had just become even _cooler._ "Whatever that was- you've got _another power?!"_

"I guess," Danny's voice echoed as he floated down to Tucker. He brought his hand up to take a closer look at what was going on with his hand, a little concerned with the blasting power. Sure, it was cool, but it could send him back to being a bully again, since it would give him even _more_ power than he already had.

Tucker was completely unaware of Danny's discomfort: he only saw the positive side of the powers, and even though it's good to be optimistic, it didn't help Tucker understand the negative side that Danny had to face every day.

Waking up every morning floating a foot or two above the bed in his ghost form, or underneath his bed in his human form, for example. While Danny had full control of his powers while conscious, he found that he had much less control when in his subconscious. He'd quickly taken to locking his bedroom door every night in case his parents or sister decided they needed to bother him at night when he might be asleep.

He was always cold: in the past, Danny seemed resilient to the cold and could last an extra week or two compared to his peers without a jacket when fall came. This year, he'd started wearing a jacket in late September, a whole month earlier than he usually would.

Then there were the constant doubts. All people have doubts over various things or topics, be it their self-esteem, their belief, or their parents and loved ones. Few doubted their humanity, even fewer in the literal sense. Danny did not know what exactly he was: his encounter with Sydney Pointdexter had at least given him a name to put on what he was, _Halfa_. Danny knew that it wasn't more of a name for what he was, but more of a slur. It was enough to know he was different from the other humans (even before the Accident), he didn't want to know that he'd be scorned for what he was in the Ghost Zone, too. Even though he knew that he _needed_ to know just so he'd be careful when meeting new ghosts, it still hurt to know that he'd never truly fit in.

There was no way Tucker could know any of this, so Danny smiled and moved to meet his best friend's high five.

He was horrified when he felt some of the leftover energy from blasting Desiree away move out of his hand as he high-fived Tucker, blasting his best friend several feet away from him and into a thankfully cotton-candied stall.

"Ow. I'm OK!" Tucker's muffled voice called out through the artificially-colored sweet spun poison.

"Tuck! Are you alright?" Danny flew to where Tuck landed and phased him out of the sticky substance.

"It's fine, I think my hand got a little singed, but other than that, I'm perfectly fine," Tucker muttered before swaying just a bit. Danny grabbed Tucker's hand and searched for any serious injury.

His blast was thankfully very low-powered, because Tucker's hand only showed signs of being sunburned.

"I'm _so_ sorry, Tuck!" Danny moaned as he let go of his best friend's hand.

"Hey, dude, it's OK, you've got a new power! Let's go to my house and experiment with it!"

"Umm, maybe it'd be better if we experimented with this power in _my_ house: it's sort of prepped for ecto-use."

"Right, good idea. Ghost power training, here we come!" Tucker grinned.


	24. Chapter 24

Danny and Tucker walked in through the front door of Fentonworks and were immediately ambushed by Maddie Fenton, her hood and goggles in place which made her look like a teal four-legged bug.

"Danny! Come see the Ecto-ray I've been working on!" Danny's mother quickly ushered the two boys into the kitchen, where a large blueprint of a gun took up most of the space on the dining table, along with multiple pieces of gadgetry, some that Danny recognized and most that Tucker didn't. Tucker picked up a three-inch wide piece of metal that curved on the sides.

"What is it? What does it do?" he asked, setting the unknown piece back on the table.

"It's a gun that shoots ecto-rays! I've just finished the first prototype. Would you like to test it in the lab with me?" Maddie proceeded to pull out a sleek silver and green pistol that could have been mistaken for a sleek futuristic design if the ammo wasn't glowing (and even then, it could be mistaken as a futuristic gun).

"Don't worry, boys, I have the safety on," she reassured the two teenagers that were simultaneously awed and frightened at Maddie Fenton holding the gun, for different reasons. "Come on!"

Maddie pushed the two boys towards the lab and set up a basic target, instructing the boys to stay behind her as she tested it out. She removed the safety and aimed the gun carefully, her arms straight, and pulled the trigger.

A large blast escaped the barrel and rushed towards the target… before curving and landing on the floor.

Danny's mother tutted before replacing the safety back on and placing the gun on the closest table. She gathered a few instruments and walked to where the ectoplasm landed, muttering scientific reasonings that neither Danny or Tucker understood.

She gathered a sample from the splotch on the floor and placed it in a small Ziploc bag, then cleaned up the rest of the ectoplasm and disposed it in a sleek Fenton-ectotrash can.

"I'll need to go over the entire prototype and blueprints and see where I went wrong. Sorry, boys," Maddie explained.

Danny and Tucker had awkwardly been standing in the same place while Maddie had bustled about, not really knowing what to do.

"That's OK, Mrs. Fenton," Tucker said.

"Hey Mom, do you have any ecto-guns that we can use? We were wanting to do some… target practice," Danny asked, subconsciously rubbing the back of his neck.

"Sure, honey! It's always a good idea to know how to defend yourself, especially from ghosts! Here," Maddie opened a cabinet next to the stairs leading to the kitchen and pulled out two ectoguns, "and don't forget to remember the three rules of handling guns."

"Always keep the gun pointed somewhere safe, always keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot, and always keep it unloaded until you're ready to shoot," Danny rattled off, having heard it from his mother multiple times before.

"Yep! You know where the ammo's kept! Have fun, sweetie!"

And with that, Maddie bounded up the stairs with her prototype.

Danny and Tucker had used the Ectoguns many times before because they were one of the first ghost-hunting weapons that Jack and Maddie had invented. Unfortunately, at the time the guns were created, the Fentons were not able to test if the ammunition had any effect on ghosts. The ectoplasm always came out as a goo-like substance, instead of a small, concentrated bullet of ectoplasm. It frustrated both Fentons to no end that no matter how hard they tried, the bullets they made always turned into mush by the time it left the barrel.

Which left the Fenton couple wondering if their invention could potentially harm humans. After several tests on the ecto-goo's acidic, basic, and radioactive levels, they determined that the ectoplasmic goo was just that: goo. Goo that was very hot when exiting the barrel and quickly cooled as it traveled through the air. If someone shot a human with it at point blank range, it would, in the worst-case scenario, give 2nd degree burns. It could only have the potential to give 2nd degree burns if the target was only inches away from the end of the barrel. Once the distance reached two feet, the goo would cool to a temperature that could not harm human skin. Thus, the Fentons had concluded that the ectogun was as dangerous as a paintball gun, and, after repeatedly showing their children (and Tucker) the safety procedures for handling guns, and repeatedly reminding them to never shoot the guns if anyone was within 2 ½ feet, allowed them to play around with them in the Fenton's backyard.

From the period when Danny and Tucker were 9 to 11 years old, a favorite game they'd play together was Ghost'n'Hunters: the two would set up a fort each and shoot the ecto-goo at each other, or they'd set up targets shaped as ghosts and they'd shoot the targets.

By the time the two were twelve, they'd grown out of the game and the ectoguns began to gather dust in the Fenton Weapons Vault.

Danny and Tucker both grabbed an ectogun each and faced the target.

"I thought we were doing ghost training?" Tucker asked, a little confused.

"It might be a good idea to get my aim back up before trying it again. I might have only given you a sunburn, but I also shot that ghost, Desiree, all the way to Elmerton," Danny reasoned, then motioned for Tucker to step back, who did, subconsciously following the 2 ½ feet rule practically pounded into their heads when 9 years old.

Danny raised the ectogun with both hands, his arms out straight, and carefully aimed with his right eye (which was his dominant eye), pulling the trigger when he was ready. The goo splattered a little left of the center ring.

"Let the Foley show you how it's done," Tucker confidently stepped up to where Danny was standing and gently pushed (shoved) him away, taking aim as well and firing his gun. His shot landed a little south of the center ring.

"I think it's safe to say that we're _both_ out of practice, Tucker," Danny nudged Tucker over and moved to take aim again, "I know I haven't shot a gun since I was twelve."

Danny fired and was closer to the center of the target that round. He stepped aside and let Tucker take aim.

"Why did we stop again?" he asked, aiming more carefully this time. His shot was closer than Danny's second try, so he smirked at his best friend, who's eyes had narrowed and both boys knew that the competition was _on._

They had to clean the target from the goo every three rounds, but in the end, Danny barely won with a lucky bullseye on his last shot.

Danny ran upstairs to get more ammo as Tucker cleaned up the target. When Danny returned carrying a small box of small, green bullets, he said,

"Mom's still in her work zone. Let's get started on ghost training."

"Awesome!" Tucker exclaimed, setting his gun on the table next to him and popping his neck. Danny set the box he was carrying down and rolled his shoulders, then twisted his back to pop his vertebrae. He finished by popping his fingers in one go, then transformed into his ghost half.

"So… what happened when you, you know, blasted that ghost away?"

"It felt like there was a connection between the center of my chest and my hand, and my entire arm felt… I don't know how to describe it, it had more energy than the rest of my body, I guess," Danny rambled, trying to explain what had happened when he'd shot Desiree.

Tucker whipped out his PDA and started writing everything Danny had said.

"Do you think you can do it again?"

"That's why we're here, right?" Danny joked, but lifted his right arm and faced his palm towards the target. And concentrated.

Nothing happened.

"Are you…" Tucker started.

"Yes!" Danny exclaimed. His forehead beaded with sweat; Tucker could see a drop streak down Danny's temple and cheek before his best friend groaned in frustration and dropped his arm.

"I don't get it! Why can't I do it?"

Tucker tapped the end of his stylus against his chin and hummed.

"Maybe you should imagine yourself firing a gun with your fingers," he joked.

Danny's eyes widened as he realized that he hadn't tried that. He straightened back up and lifted his arm again, forming a hand gun and imagining a bullet travelling through his arm and out the two fingers acting as a barrel.

A small shot of green light shot out of Danny's hand and hit the edge of the target, leaving a smoking hole behind. Both Danny and Tucker stared, jaws dropped, in amazement at what had just occurred.

"Did that just happen?" Tucker whispered.

"Yeah, that just happened," Danny whispered back.

"You could kill a person with that."

"Probably."

The two continued staring at the target, not really knowing what to do.

Danny was frightened at his new capability: he'd just discovered that he could kill someone without even touching them.

Tucker was amazed at the new level Danny's powers were rising to: if he wanted to, he could kill someone without even touching them. Or at least hurt them very badly.

"I should probably tone it down a little…" Danny uttered, a little scared to try again. Nevertheless, the boy swallowed his fear and raised his arm again, this time settling on aiming his palm at the target instead of the hand gun. A large beam of energy burst out of Danny's hand and hit the target just right of the center. This time, the energy seemed to solidify into goo and left a similar substance, like the ectoguns, on the target.

Tucker was frantically typing on his PDA as Danny walked up to the target to clean it off.

"Well, I don't think this stuff will kill anyone," Danny commented. "OR hurt ghosts."

"Who knows," Tucker replied with a small shrug. The two (Danny) experimented more with the new power, when Danny finally figured out what triggered his "ectoblast", as Tucker had aptly named.

"Danny? How's target practice going?" Maddie called from the kitchen.

Danny and Tucker scrambled to reload their long forgotten ectoguns. Danny almost forgot to transform back into his human form, which he did just before Maddie reached the bottom of the stairs as Tucker took a few shoots at the mutilated target from practice with Danny's much more potent ectoblasts.

When Maddie had full view of the lab, she noticed a full box of ammo and Tucker shooting at the target that seemed to be inches away from dropping to the floor.

"Danny, you're ruining the target! And I thought you'd be shooting enough to empty a box by now. Are you messing with the lab equipment?" Maddie placed her hands on her hips and scrutinized Danny, searching for any sign of rule breaking or deception.

Danny's hand found its way to the back of his neck.

"Umm…" his brain quickly thought of an excuse. "Didn't you see me going past you for more ammo?"

This threw Maddie through a loop. Had she been so focused on her work that she didn't even notice Danny coming by again to get another box?

"Oh," was all she could utter before Danny quickly said,

"Did you need to use the lab? Cause we can go do something else," Danny gestured to the stairs, offering Maddie full use of the lab without Danny or Tucker shooting guns in the background.

"You'll probably need a new target, too, we've worn this one out," Tucker quickly said, moving towards the busted target.

"Right," Danny supported Tucker, and moved to help him remove the target. "We'll dump this in the trash for you, Mom. Have fun with your… work stuff!"

And with a few grunts and groans, the two boys rushed as quickly as they could up the stairs and away from Maddie's intelligent and prying, yet currently slightly confused, eyes.

Danny and Tucker had just gotten back from stuffing the mutilated target deep in the large trash bin the Fentons owned when the landline rang. Danny's eyebrows furrowed as he hurried to the kitchen to answer it.

"Hello?" he asked as he held up the receiver to the side of his face.

"Hello, this is Danny, right?" a slightly lisps-y voice sounded from the other end.

"Yes… who is this?"

"This is Lester, from school," Lester was one of the geeks that Danny had recently met because their lockers were right next to each other. Lester made a sound this sounded like he was sniffling.

"Hey, Lester, what's up?" Danny asked politely. They weren't friends, but that wasn't an excuse for Danny to be rude.

"Do you think you could do a favor for me?" the boy on the other line asked.

"Uhhh, depends on what the favor is…" Danny answered a little nervous. Tucker entered the kitchen at that point and lifted an eyebrow at Danny, who shrugged at his best friend.

"I'm sort of the school mascot… and I don't know if I'll be able to attend the semifinal tomorrow," Lester sounded like he'd removed his receiver away from his head and sneezed, rather obnoxiously, since Danny could hear it, then continued, "And all of my friends are in the marching band, so they can't fill in for me because they're out marching."

"You're… asking me to fill in for your mascot duties tomorrow night at the football game?" Danny asked, not exactly looking forward to going to see the people who had bullied him and Tucker and Sam for so long being glorified as they smashed into other people on the football field.

"It's a home game, so you don't have to travel far, and I don't know who else to ask… and… and you'll have the opportunity to meet some of the cheerleaders! Some of them are really nice, like Mia, and Brittany, and-and Ashley… and I really don't feel very well…"

Danny spoke up before Lester could continue.

"It's OK, Lester, I'll fill in for you tomorrow."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you, Danny! You're awesome, has anyone told you that? OK, all you have to do is show up at the field at 5:30 and the mascot suit should be there. Wear something long sleeved, the suit gets a little itchy, sometimes. I'll let Coach Tetslaff know that you'll be filling in for me!"

"OK, Lester," Danny said.

"Bye!"

And Danny hung up the phone.

"What was that all about?" Tucker asked, slightly curious.

"You know Lester? His locker's next to mine."

"The only kid in the band geek group that doesn't play a band instrument, yeah, I remember him. What did he want?"

"Apparently, he's also the mascot. He doesn't think he'll be well enough to mascot for tomorrow's game," Danny started heading for his room, with Tucker following him.

"And he asked you to fill in for him."

"Yep."

"Well, that's just great," Tucker's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"At… least I'll have the chance to meet cheerleaders?"

Tucker's attention peaked.

"Cheerleaders, you say…?"

* * *

It was not as cracked up as they'd imagined it to be. By the time the first quarter was over, Danny was soaked in sweat, despite the early November chill freezing most of the audience to the bone. By the time the half-time was finished, Danny was ready to ditch the stupid raven costume and run (fly) home.

 _Meeting cheerleaders is not worth_ _this_.

His costume was itching again. Danny moved to try to relieve it, but was stopped when a cold chill spread from his spine up and out through his mouth.

 _Great, just what I need._

As Danny turned to find where the ghost was, he noticed that Dash looked… very different. His eyes wandered up and could see, just beyond the headlights, the ghost that he'd blasted to Elmerton the day before.

"Oh _no."_

Dash proceeded to throw the football far towards the other end of the field, then shoved his way through the other players and _caught up to it_ before making a touchdown, single-handed.

"Oh, wow! It looks like those high-protein breakfasts are _really_ paying off!" one of the commentators joked as they noticed Dash in his newly green monstrous form once he'd scored.

Danny ran up to where he knew Sam and Tucker (well, just Tucker now, Danny had been concerned when he saw Sam wasn't looking that great) were sitting to determine what to do.

"Do you believe this, Danny?! Dash is a _beast!"_

Dash threw down the football and roared in triumph, turning to the audience and flexing his muscles.

"And…getting beastier," Danny observed.

" _Holy Mark McGwire,_ look at those _arms!"_ the other commentator guffawed.

"He's definitely running on ghost power," Danny told Tucker, who jumped up immediately. "I need some help," Danny finished, looking to Tucker.

"To kick some ghost butt?" said the teen that was _not_ currently in a sweaty Raven Mascot outfit.

"Sort of…" Danny answered, looking back towards the football teams, which had lined up for another round. Dash stood out, towering above the other teenagers like the raging Hulk and intimidating both players on the other team _and_ the same team.

Danny led Tucker to behind the stands and, looking around to see if anyone was watching (everyone's eyes were on Dash's monstrous figure), phased himself out of the mascot suit.

"I need you to take my place while I take care of the ghost, Dash, the ghost-Dash!" Danny explained, handing the Raven outfit to Tucker, who looked a little crestfallen at his job.

"OK," he muttered as he pulled on the suit. Danny quickly turned invisible and transformed into his ghost half and sped towards Dash as Tucker changed into the suit. About half-way there, he noticed a foul stench coming from the football players.

When he reached Dash, the stench was strengthened _and_ worsened times ten.

 _Yeuck! Ghost energy's pretty strong!_ Danny moved to cover his nose. _Hopefully, ripe for the picking._

He willed his hand to become intangible and dug into Dash's head, searching for… something.

He found it. Danny could feel a foreign entity residing inside Dash, taking up the outer layer of Dash's body and repressing control from his mind. Danny pulled the ghost energy out, which roared at the invisible half-ghost as he flew away from the field and behind the stands. It was _not_ happy being separated from its host.

"Back to the Ghost Zone for you!" Danny told the ghost as he pulled it all the way back to Fentonworks. Danny had… forgotten to bring the Thermos with him, so he couldn't just suck the ghost up in the Thermos and go back to mascot-ing (and he didn't really want to: he'd let Tucker have fun with cheerleaders).

Which left Danny with having to keep a firm hold on the Dash-ghost all the way home. There were a couple of times when the ghost escaped and started fleeing back towards the school's general direction (to fulfill its obsession: make Dash the kind of monster that would take down other teams like a one-man army), and Danny had to catch up to it and punch it a bit to weaken it.

When Danny finally made it to his house, he invisibly and intangibly flew through the house and checked the lab was empty of his parents before turning visible and throwing the ghost into the Ghost Zone.

The ghost screeched and dissolved into the ectoplasmic energy, its core too weak to withstand the portal's powerful churning, which ripped the ghost to pieces as it passed from the human world into the Ghost Zone.

Danny didn't know this: how could he? How could anyone know?

Danny, satisfied that the ghost was in the Ghost Zone, turned and flew directly through a weird net-like thing that his parents (Jack, probably) had been working on earlier that day.

He forgotten he'd seen it was there until it was too late, but as he flew through the strange ring, Danny felt like he was floating through water before his chest reached the middle, when the feeling transformed into what Danny could only describe as what the people in _Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom_ felt like just as their heart was ripped from their chest, still beating.

Danny felt himself land on the floor with a small grunt, feeling very… _drained_ _._ There wasn't any other way to really describe it. Danny looked up and saw… himself, barely, since the other him was invisible.

It was highly disorienting, meeting your own gaze when _not_ staring in the mirror. Danny noticed that the other Danny was in Phantom form, and was looking just as confused as he was.

[To be able to understand what just happened, a decent grasp of Halfa biology is required. It was previously revealed that Danny's bone marrow creates ectoplasmic blood: that is, his blood still functions like a regular human's does. His blood still has hemoglobin, which is active when in human form, which is also why Danny doesn't bleed green ectoplasm when human. However, Danny's blood cells also carry ectoplasm, since the DNA in his bone marrow was altered in the Accident and is now made up of ectoplasm, each blood cell has ectoplasm in it. While the hemoglobin's purpose is to bring oxygen to the body, the ectoplasm in Danny's body remains dormant while in human form. When Danny transforms into his ghost form, the ectoplasm activates and the hemoglobin is basically frozen: it becomes dormant. As soon as the ectoplasm 'awakens', the hemoglobin is forced into the center of each red blood cell (where the ectoplasm had previously stayed in its dormant state) and replaced the hemoglobin, which in turn explains why Danny doesn't bleed red when in ghost form. However, the ectoplasm's job is not to bring oxygen to the rest of Danny's body, but to provide new ectoplasm to Danny's other cells, before travelling back to his core, which is Danny's source of ectoplasm.

When Danny flew through the strange, circular invention (the Fenton Ghost-Catcher, he'd later discover), all of the ectoplasm outside of his core was separated from his body like water through a sieve. It would take a much more precise instrument to remove his core. Since Danny still had his core, however, he maintained control over the floating ghost-Danny above him.]

The ghost-Danny quickly flew back into Danny. As he did so, Danny's eyes could only see green for a few seconds as Danny's phantom remerged with Danny's body.

Someone suddenly sneezed, and the Halfa was on high alert.

"Who's that?" the sneeze's source called.

 _Oh no, it's Dad!_

"Somebody out there?" Jack called as he lifted a patch of what seemed to be an Indian tent that Danny just noticed.

 _Well, as long as he didn't notice anything…_

Suddenly, Danny's mother opened the flap next to Jack and Danny's mind decided to remember what he and Tucker had been talking about the day before.

"Am I interrupting something? That I _really_ hope I'm not?" the 14-year old boy asked, his face flushing when an image of his parents doing… _naughty_ things together suddenly popped into his head.

 _Stop thinking about that!_

Maddie sniffed, then answered,

"Your father and I are purifying ourselves from negative ghost energy."

Jack sneezed once again, groaned, and wiped his nose as he sniffed through his stuffed nose.

"We're trying to ritually expel any viral ghosts in our systems with the Fenton Ghost-Catcher!"

Danny looked back to the weird invention that he had just accidentally flown into.

"It's like an Indian Dream-Catcher except it expunges ghosts and not dreams, you see!" Jack finished, sniffling his nose once again.

Danny took a good look at his parents and realized that they did _not_ look good at all.

"You might just have a cold, you know," he told his parents. It was almost winter: a lot of people got the cold when the seasons change. "It doesn't have to be a _ghost_ cold."

Jack and Maddie glanced at each other in disbelief over their son's blindness to their _obvious_ ghost cold. They turned their disappointed glare back on Danny.

"I remember when _I_ was that naïve," Jack muttered as he and Maddie moved towards the stairs, probably to make a pot of tea with _ectoranium_ (the half-ghost shuddered) _._

Danny waited a couple of seconds before slowly moving back to the Fenton Ghost-Catcher, determined to figure out if it actually _did_ work (even though it had just separated what he believed to be his ghost half from his human half earlier) by sticking half of his arm through it.

As Danny slid his hand and arm through the strange energy, he saw _and_ felt an invisible hand and arm matching Danny's separate from his physical arm and float just a little above said arm.

"Woah!" He quickly retracted his arm from the Ghost-Catcher when he noticed the weird tingling the nerves in his arm gave being separated from his ghost half. "This one actually _works_! A little _too_ well."

Danny stepped back a few steps _away_ from the Catcher, rubbing his still tingling arm.

"I'm filing this under 'Must Avoid'," he muttered, sending the invention a small glare before rushing up the stairs.

* * *

Danny had completely forgetten about Tucker, who he'd accidentally left to the football jock wolves in raven's clothing that had been _very_ disappointed over the game they'd lost.

"Man, every time Danny goes ghost, I get the short end of the stick," Tucker muttered to himself. The boy was right to be a little bitter, since he'd been left hanging upside-down on the goal post with only disappointed football jocks for company, who'd just noticed him.

And decided that he'd be a perfect piñata.

Leaving Tucker silently cursing Danny's name as he took the bullies beating the Raven mascot costume to a pulp, with Tucker still inside.


	25. Chapter 25

Tucker's Sunday morning consisted of moaning, stretching, and lots of joints popping, particularly in the lower back area. He (luckily) had not been very hurt by the football players the night before: the mascot outfit had apparently been fitted by Lester to withstand blows from disappointed jocks, so Tucker managed to get away with a couple of bruises instead of a trip to the hospital (which was what he'd been expecting when he discovered that he'd essentially be a Raven Piñata).

That doesn't mean that Tucker didn't wake up extremely sore, though, because he was.

"Ooowwwwwww," Tucker's body complained in every place imaginable.

"Is it too late to go back to bed?" the boy wondered out loud as he slid on his glasses, groaning when another vertebra popped unexpectedly. Tucker was about to fall back and sleep the Sunday away when his PDA rang.

"Hello?" he groggily answered.

"Hey Tuck," Danny greeted on the other end. "Just calling to remind you that we're going to see _Dead Teacher IV_ at the movies today."

"Oh, yeah," Tucker had completely forgotten about the plan to go see the newly released _Dead Teacher IV_ , and he was sore enough to almost _not_ want to go.

Which was absolutely crazy, because he _loved_ the _Dead Teacher_ series (not as much as Sam, but horror films _are_ right up her alley).

"Meet you by the theater at ten?" Danny asked, completely ignorant of Tucker's less than optimistic and energetic attitude.

"Yeah, see you then," the exhausted boy answered before hanging up. Tucker pulled himself up and stretched before falling back on to his very comfy bed with a dramatic groan.

* * *

"Hey Tuck! How were the cheerleaders last night?" Danny cheerfully greeted a rather moody Tucker, who was about five minutes late (and still very sore).

"They were good," Tucker answered, accidentally letting out a yawn.

"Sam's not coming," Danny chattered, still a little clueless to Tucker's mood. "I just called her. Apparently, she's too sick to even get out of bed. I told her we'd visit her later."

But Tucker's sour mood was slowly sweetening like a sour gummy bear: the excitement to see the movie, and hanging with Danny, was enough to make him temporarily forget the aches complaining.

"That stinks," Tucker commented.

"Yeah, I mean, it's got to be bad if she's missing _Dead Teacher IV_ ," Danny added as he intangibly walked through a trash can, which Tucker _definitely_ noticed. Their attention was then diverted by the new Crash Nebula arcade game (mostly Danny, because of his love for astronomy[games], and then Tucker for his love of technology [games]).

"Oh man, I haven't seen _this_ one before!" Danny exclaimed as he fiddled a bit with the controls.

"Too bad it's single player," Tucker bemoaned.

A large commotion drew their attention away from the game and towards… was that _Paulina?_

"Is that _Paulina?"_ Danny and Tucker were rather shocked to see Paulina three feet shorter and… rather adorable, but in the oriental anime way. It was a little disorienting.

" _Attention, movie-goers! Googelplex Cinemas has officially declared it_ _Happy Fabulous Paulina Day_ _!"_ the speakers in the large, entryway to the theaters rang out.

 _What?!_ Danny's face was set in a grimace while Tucker's eyebrows were scrunched with his mouth wide open when they saw the Anime-Paulina turn around to give her _thank-you speech_.

"I don't know what to say!" The newly disproportionate-bodied girl turned around and addressed her 'avid fans'. The girl suddenly gasped, as if she had thought of something that no one else had _ever_ thought before.

"Why squander my popularity here? I'm so _adorable,_ I bet I could become _super Fairy Queen_ of _**all**_ _teenagerdom!"_

To Danny and Tucker's annoyance, for different reasons, Anime-Paulina grew from being a one-foot (cuddly) disproportionate girl into a giant head with a tiny body that towered at least three feet above the properly proportioned humans beside her.

Danny sighed and turned to Tucker.

"Tucker, I-"

"Do what you gotta do, I'll get seats," Danny noticed the disappointed tone in Tucker's voice as he accepted the Thermos from his best friend, but figured he could handle it later: there _was_ a ghost in the vicinity.

Tucker turned away from Danny, who had just transformed into his ghost form and turned invisible, leaving Tucker with little else to do _but_ get seats, like a good little _sidekick._

 _Stupid Danny and his showing off his awesome ghost powers._

His mood was worsened when he discovered that _Dead Teacher IV_ had been completely sold out, which left him with a kids' cartoon or a chick flick to choose from.

He chose the kids' cartoon that started in forty-five minutes, which meant that the theater was _very_ empty.

 _Stupid Danny running off to fight ghosts, leaving me and Sam behind as if we're useless._

 _ **You're only useless because you don't have powers the way**_ _ **he**_ _ **does.**_

 _Ungrateful, selfish prick._

"Man, I cover for Danny, my movie gets sold out, and I've got to watch _this_ now," the boy mumbled with a pout on his face. "I'm _tired_ of being left out all the time! Man, I wish _I_ had ghost powers, too!"

The room chilled and Tucker's skin puckered into goosebumps.

"Your heart's desire is _my_ command!" Tucker looked up and saw the wishing ghost elegantly turn her wrist above his head. Tucker gasped as thick, green fog appeared from nowhere and encircled him, then converged on him all at once. The boy let out a small shriek as he suddenly felt as if his entire body had fallen asleep, then woken up and completely energized.

Tucker only had enough time to realize that the ghost was gone when he fell through the chair. The way Danny fell through his bed the day he got his powers.

Tucker managed to stop himself from travelling _too_ deep in the crust and imagined flying up to the surface. He was losing oxygen from being underground (and therefore not being able to breathe) and was _just_ about to pass out when he invisibly shot through the floor and ceiling outside the theatre, where he immediately began taking in large gulps of air.

As soon as he'd caught his breathe, Tucker's brain kicked into action.

 _Sweet! I've got ghost powers!_

Newly ghost-powered Tucker did not waste a second to test out his new powers. After flying around a bit above the theatre, he realized that everything he did he could mentally command his body to do.

 _Invisible!_

Tucker became invisible.

 _Invisible and intangible!_

He became so. If he could mentally visualize or instruct something of ghostly powers, he could do it. Except for the ectoblast, he didn't want to try that yet.

 _This is easy! Danny must be really clueless if it took him two months to figure this out!_

Tucker guided his body towards the theatre where he knew _Dead Teacher IV_ was playing. It was a full house, but that didn't really matter anymore since he could now watch invisibly above the others (and steal a few handfuls of popcorn and sips of soda from random viewers that had no clue he was there.

Tucker suddenly saw a redheaded nerd sitting next to his (the nerd's) crush and slipped the guy's arm around the curly black-haired girl, who was _not_ pleased at suddenly having an arm wrapped around her shoulders. The redhead grinned rather smugly, before he noticed the glare the girl was sending him, transforming the smug grin into a very nervous smile.

Tucker couldn't help but snicker when the girl punched the boy right in the nose, sending the redhead sprawling on the floor in front of him with a rather unmanly squeak.

 _Man, I wish Danny was here! We'd have so much fun pranking everyone!_

Tucker suddenly remembered that Danny had promised Sam that he wouldn't use his powers to prank anyone anymore and sulked. He knew that Danny would keep his promise and thereby refrain from joining Tucker in his hilarious escapades, thus ruining the fun.

 _Well, I can still show him what it feels like being left behind._

Tucker smirked at the thought and flew out of the theater in search of Danny. Maybe the weird Paulina-anime ghost was giving him trouble.

He caught sight of Danny following a flying car.

Tucker, admittedly, did not see that one coming.

But he confidently flew after Danny and the car, anyway. Time for some payback.

 _It took Danny two months to learn how to do this? Psh, I can learn it in two minutes!_

"Don't sweat this one, Danny, I'm on it!" And Tucker commanded his body to fly faster and fly faster he did, smirking to himself for leaving Danny in the dust before quickly catching up to the flying car and taking the passenger's seat.

"Chill, dude," the boy said to the blond surfer in the car. "Tucker Phantom's on the case."

If Tucker had a bit more time, he could have come up with a _way_ better name than 'Phantom', as it _was_ sort of Danny's thing (even though it was Sam and Tucker that had come up with it), so Tucker's tiny seed of guilt grew just a bit as Danny's head poked through the back seat and commented,

"Tucker _Phantom?_ OK, ignoring the fact that you totally stole my name, how the _heck_ did you get ghost powers anyway?"

[Tucker would never truly know this because he never had experienced the _true_ method of receiving ghost 'powers' (and he never will), but Danny was highly concerned for his best friend. If Tucker had experienced the same method Danny had… Danny didn't even want to think about it: however, the white-haired ghost boy did realize that if anything _painful_ had happened to Tucker while getting his ghost powers, he wouldn't be as chipper as he was now…..Well, as chipper as he was as of that moment.]

"Who knows, and honestly, who cares?" Tucker obviously had not experienced the pain that Danny had in gaining his ghost powers, which shouldn't have made Danny worry more, but it absolutely did. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some rural exploits to attend to!"

Tucker grabbed the wheel, which honestly wasn't a good plan: neither Danny nor Tucker knew how to drive, and the blond surfer did. If the surfer couldn't control his car, then there was no way that Danny or Tucker would be able to control the car, either.

Danny realized this and took a hold on the wheel as well.

"TUCKER, WE'RE TOO YOUNG TO _DRIVE!"_

Tucker wasn't having _any_ of it and refused to let go of the wheel, leaving the two playing a strange game of "tug-of-wheel", which didn't help stabilize the car _at all._

It wasn't exactly helping that the surfer dude was screeching the entire time.

"TUCKER, LET GO OF THE WHEEL, THIS IS SERIOUS!"

 _Is it, Danny?_

Tucker, in complete rebellion against Danny's overbearing mood, barrel-rolled the car twice and made loop-de-loops three times before noticing the impending office building approaching them. When he finally did, his brain stopped working and he couldn't do anything else but scream along with the panicking blond surfer.

Danny's instinct and experience kicked in, allowing him to turn the entire car – and all of its passengers – intangible, which let them safely pass through the tall building.

[And here is where we see a major difference in Danny and Tucker's physiology. Tucker is still human: he just has ghostly _powers_. Danny, however, is _half-ghost_ , so it's part of his newfound _nature_ to be able to do ghostly things. For Danny, it's a skill that must be learned, the same way a bird must learn how to fly or a baby how to walk. For Tucker, he asked for ghost _powers_ , not to be _half-ghost_. He can simply imagine or command himself to do what he wants his powers to do and they will obey.]

Once out of harms' way, Tucker's panic transformed into annoyance at Danny for, as he called it, 'saving the day'.

"Well, yeah," Danny scoffed, "Because _anything_ smashing into the _28_ _th_ _floor of_ _ **anything**_ _is_ _ **bad**_!"

Danny was still clueless towards Tucker's jealousy and thought that it was _obvious_ that since Tucker wasn't about to make the car intangible, _he_ had to make the car intangible.

"Well, you're just _jealous!_ Because there's somebody else around to grab the spotlight _now!"_

 _What?!_ Danny was highly confused with Tucker's logic (because it honestly didn't make sense, but Tucker didn't realize that, didn't care, or both) and was about to say so when the blond surfer spoke up.

"Yo! Hallucinations! _Focus!"_

Either way, both Danny and Tucker ignored him. Nothing could be more important than getting their confusion/frustrations (respectively) off their chest, and there was no time like the present.

"When have _I_ ever grabbed the spotlight?" Danny honestly asked. When _had_ he 'grabbed the spotlight'? He couldn't think of any instances.

"How about _right now,_ for instance?" Tucker quipped back. At this point, Tucker Foley was running high on emotions and wasn't focusing much on logic. Everything was _Danny's_ fault, _Danny_ had to have the spotlight, _Danny_ had to save the day, with the special powers _he_ got from the portal.

If Tucker had just remembered the way his heart had hammered in increasing intensity that day when Danny had screamed in agony, said screams echoing throughout the lab, only to come to a screeching halt as he was silenced- maybe then, his jealousy might have withered away.

But he didn't. Tucker couldn't remember because he didn't _want_ to remember. He wanted to believe that everything was all right, that _everything_ was still the way it used to be, just with Danny having superhuman powers…

This was the hole Tucker had dug for himself. He forced himself to believe that there was nothing wrong with Danny, nothing different about Danny _besides_ the ghost powers, and in doing so, convinced himself that the only effect Danny had from the portal was ghostly abilities. It was Tucker's nature to only see the positives in everything, and while having an optimistic viewpoint in life is a good thing to have, it has its negative side effects that can be _devastating._

One being a skewed view of reality, which is what Tucker had allowed himself to receive. Because the reality was that Danny was _different,_ and not just the typical 'every human is different'. _Danny_ wasn't _human_ , anymore. Nor was he a ghost, for he wasn't dead: everything that biology determines to be alive was still alive in Danny: his cells functioned properly, he has DNA, he has the capability of growing, and of reproducing. Danny, simply put, is _different._ A difference that Danny can see and feel every second since he regained consciousness after the accident.

A difference that Tucker had no clue of.

Something else that both boys with ghost powers had no clue of was the impending collision with an old, wooden grain silo. The surfer dude finally took action and redirected the car towards a hayloft instead, saving the car – and all three passengers inside – from a certain early death or extreme injury, either from the car crumpling and squishing them, being crushed by a falling silo filled with grain, or a check to the farmer that would cost an arm and a leg.

"Tucker, _please!"_ Danny pleaded to Tucker as he intangibly lifted himself out of the hay (Tucker following shortly thereafter), "This is stupid! You're my best friend, I'm not _jealous_ , I'm _concerned!"_

 _Sure you're concerned… concerned about having your spotlight taken away, concerned about somebody else having powers, concerned about somebody else being more powerful than you!_

"Well," Tucker stated snottily, " _Don't be._ This town's big enough for more than one ghost kid."

Tucker floated higher in an attempt to give himself a higher ground, before deciding he didn't want to see Danny's face anymore. He turned around, ignoring Danny's desperate cry to wait, and rocketed away, leaving two little green contrails from the excess ghost energy trailing out from Tucker's body.

 _He's just jealous that_ _ **I**_ _have ghost powers, too! And not just that I have powers, that I'm_ _ **better**_ _than him! Because I am! Stupid, self-righteous Danny! I hate him!_

Tucker's flight skidded to a stop as his rational thinking came back.

 _What? Did I really just think that?_

 _ **So what if you did?**_

 _Oh heck no, I'm not having an argument with inner demons today. I just need to cool my head somewhere._

 _ **Well, you are better than him.**_

 _Shut up, inner demon, I'm not going to listen to you._

 _ **You will.**_

Tucker didn't make a mental response because that would just prove that he was talking to himself.

 _I know! I can use these powers to prank people!_

And what better place to prank people than by pretending to be a severed head in a meat shop?

* * *

Tucker was bored by the time five minutes had passed, so he decided to check in on Sam, by calling her on Skype.

"Hey, Tuck, what's up? I thought you and Danny were seeing a movie," Sam asked when she answered the call, after which she let out a painful sneeze.

"Eh, the sky, you know, the usual, and Danny and I ended up _not_ seeing the movie," Tucker answered. "I just wanted to see how you were doing?"

Sam wasn't falling for it.

"Why did you end up not seeing the movie?"

"Uhh," Tucker contemplated telling Sam about Desiree and his ghost powers.

 _ **Why tell her if she's just going to side with Danny? You know she's going to be jealous of your powers, too.**_

 _I thought I told you to shut up! But… you do have a point…_

"We got… a _little_ distracted…" Tucker vaguely replied with a tiny smirk. "I'm just… goofing off by myself, now."

"What happened?" Sam's stuffed nose added a wheeze to her voice. "Danny have ghost trouble?"

"You might say that." Tucker didn't really know what to say afterwards.

 _ **Distract her from thinking about you and Danny by having her talk about herself.**_

… _OK…_

"So, how are you?"

"Ugh, it's horrible," the sick girl told Tucker, who was very lucky that Sam wasn't digging _too_ deep in to what was happening between him and Danny. "But somehow, I'll muddle through."

Both teens knew that the conversation had ended, so Sam took initiative and hung up.

After the fifth person had freaked out seeing Tucker's head on a platter at the butcher's, the boy grew bored and decided to do a different prank.

 _Forget superhero stuff! This is a lot more fun!_

 _ **Besides, fighting ghosts only made Danny a lot stiffer. He isn't fun to be around anymore.**_

 _Yeah! He can keep his fighting ghosts job! I'll just stick to pranking people!_

And that's what Tucker did the rest of his Sunday: tying people's tennis shoes together, whistling invisibly behind somebody taking a walk, etc.

And for the first time in Tucker Foley's life, this particular sentence rang true in his mind:

 _I can't wait to get to school tomorrow!_

* * *

Tucker's first victim Monday morning was Mr. Lancer: as the teacher leaned over to take a drink from a water fountain, Tucker turned the water on full blast, splashing Mr. Lancer directly in the face.

"Moby _Dick!"_

Invisible Tucker had to force himself not to make a sound as he undid the belt holding the Vice Principal's pants up and dropped it on the floor. As Mr. Lancer bent to pick it up, Tucker aimed the spout at his teacher's head and doused him in water once again, then undid the man's tie while he was distracted.

Mr. Lancer noticed and screeched,

"Gulliver's Travels! I'm losing my _mind!"_

Tucker, knowing the prank was a success, flew down the hall and watched from a distance as Mr. Lancer's pants fell down by themselves.

He celebrated by laughing with the other kids that noticed Lancer's predicament when he was interrupted by _party pooper Danny._

"Nice trick," he sniffed. "Do you do kid's parties?"

"Dude, relax!" Tucker turned to face Danny. "I'm just having fun!"

Danny did… not look good. His ashen face and sunken eyes only highlighted the boy's impending illness.

"You OK?"

"I may be catching Sam's cold, but that's not important," Danny's eyes met Tucker's, who noticed they were filled to the brim with the same kind of determination that he had when facing an extra challenging ghost, "Tucker, look-"

"No need," Tucker interrupted Danny. He did _not_ want to get into another argument with his best friend that he was currently jealous of but not anymore because now he was _better_ than said best friend. "You can keep that superhero stuff to yourself. I'm just in it for the kicks!"

If Danny didn't want to have fun with his powers, that's his choice. Tucker was going to use his powers _wisely._

Danny sighed.

"I was afraid of that. I'm sorry, Tuck," Danny placed his hand on Tucker's shoulder, "but I need to see what's going on inside of you, and there's only one way to do that."

 _Oh, heck no!_

Danny intangibly flew into Tucker's body and began a little bit of fiddling.

 _Tucker, let me see what's going on! I'm trying to help!_

 _No, Danny! I don't want you to! I'm_ _ **fine**_ _the way I am!_

 _ **You're just jealous that I have ghost powers, too!**_

 _Tucker, stop resisting! You're hurting us both!_

 _ **Then get out!**_

While this epic mental battle was happening in Tucker's head, Tucker's body did not reveal anything more than what seemed to be extremely painful constipation.

 _I can't! I need to see what happened to you when you got ghost powers! What if it's hurting you?_

 _ **It's not! Are you so desperate that you can't stand anybody else having the same abilities as you? Get OUT OF ME!**_

With that, Tucker won the battle of wills and forced Danny out, who went flying out and crashed into the wall that Tucker was facing.

"Don't _ever_ do that again. _**Got it?**_ " Tucker balled his hand into a fist, very tempted to punch Danny until he bruised. The boy laying on the floor noticed a green aura flare up around his best friend.

"Got it," the boy agreed meekly, still reeling from the fight.

Once again, Tucker found himself hating Danny so much that he couldn't even stand being around him.

"Good!" he shouted, stomping away before he did something stupid, like hit Danny while he was down.

 _ **Well, it would be justified. He deserves it! I should have hit him before I left.**_

 _Maybe Danny was just trying to do what he thought was best, it's not his fault-_

 _ **Are you serious? Of course it's his fault. He thinks he has control over you! As soon as you get ghost powers, he sees something wrong with it! He wants to TAKE AWAY your powers! Do you really want that?**_

 _No, not really…_

 _ **Then shut up and stop listening to what Danny says. All he wants to do is make you less than him so that he can be the one that decides what's best for you, without even listening to what you want! He wants to be in control!**_

 _Well then, I'll let him know that he can't control_ _ **me.**_

* * *

And Tucker spent the rest of the day pranking. By the time classes were over, everyone was talking about the new ghost that was haunting the school halls.

"I was just in band class, playing my tuba, when a bunch of soda came rushing into my mouth! It's going to cost an arm and a leg to clean it all out!"

"When I went to get my books for English, something stole my backpack and left everything in it in random places across the school! I got in trouble with Mr. Lancer because he thinks I was destroying school property, when I was only trying to get my pens out of the ceiling!"

"Someone stole my purse and shoved it as far as they could on top of the tallest cabinet in the Physics classroom! Everyone knows I'm the shortest girl in class! Why would anyone do that?"

These were the tales Danny heard and blamed Tucker for by the end of the day, and he intended to talk Tucker out of continuing his 'pranking' spree. Tucker _was_ responsible for all of them: his problem was that he didn't see any wrong in doing it. He wouldn't see that his _fun_ was _bullying._

Danny searched the school twice over before he found the techno-geek stalking Paulina outside. He followed Tucker, then sighed when he saw his best friend overshadow the most popular girl in freshman year.

Naturally, the first thing Tucker did with Paulina was talk to Danny.

"I just wanted to let you know, I'm going to start dating Tucker Foley!" Danny quickly filed in the back of his mind that Paulina sounded exactly the same, but her eyes seemed to glow bright with ectoplasmic energy. "So, stop chasing me."

"Tucker, get out of there," Danny groaned, not in the mood for being around an extremely immature Tucker Foley.

"Why don't you _make_ me?" Paulina placed her hand on her cocked hip: despite Tucker being a guy, he could play the sassy popular girl really well (when in a body that provides the assets for it).

"Fine, I will," Danny shot back, quickly overshadowing Paulina as well. Tucker was momentarily shocked, but recovered quickly enough to maintain a hold on the reins, over which a tug-of-war quickly ensued.

"Tucker, you're turning the whole _school_ upside-down, how about giving it a break?"

"How about getting off my back and letting me have a little fun?"

" _Because_ your 'fun' is kind of _mean_. Now, get _out_ of Paulina!"

"I was here first! _You_ go!"

"No! _You!"_

" _You!"_

Paulina was quickly receiving stares from the people around her because she was sounding _very crazy._

"Pau-Paulina? Are you… feeling alright?" one of the loner teens, Sarah, asked nervously.

Danny and Tucker didn't hear her, so Paulina did not respond, but continued shouting strange things.

"Babazita's genie gave me these powers and I'll use them how I _want!"_

 _Babazita?_

"Then maybe I need a chat with this 'Babazita'," Danny murmured before invisibly leaving Paulina and flying away, determined to find out what had happened with Tucker.

"Fine, but you and I _aren't_ _ **friends**_ _anymore,_ _ **Danny Fenton**_!" Tucker shouted out before invisibly leaving Paulina as well.

Tucker Foley flew straight home, his mood spoiled, which his mother clearly heard as the boy had shaken the entire house when he'd slammed his bedroom door.

 _I don't need you, anyway, Danny Fenton._

 **A/N Next chapter _will_ be the last on on this episode, and then I will be free from being limited to what happens in the episodes (until the next episode, but that isn't for a while in my timeline ^.^) But next chapter will be filled with analyzing goodness on Danny, Desiree, and Tucker (but mostly Tucker). I really tried to finish the episode in this chapter, but it was not meant to be XP **

**If there is anything that you are specifically excited for when reading this (analyzing and depth-wise), let me know ;) it gets my gears turning extra early for it.**


	26. Chapter 26

Danny's mind was whirring as he walked to the park, where he knew a popular wishing well was. Alright, it was a fountain, and not a well, but most wishing wells these days are fountains, so it doesn't really matter.

He sneezed, then suddenly remembered that he could fly.

 _Idiot, you have ghost powers!_

But then… Danny didn't want to fly. Hearing Desiree's story only cemented any small amount of sympathy he had for the ghost, or _any_ ghost. He knew he needed the time to chew over what he'd learned about Desiree's past so that he could find a way to defeat her.

So Danny kept walking. The thought that each ghost he fought _had_ a back story, a _reason_ they were the way they were, had crossed the boy's mind before. Ghosts were, after all, the remnants of a human's subconscious (at least, according to his parents. Science _is_ ever-changing, and since ghosts' existence haven't exactly been proven to the scientific community, ectologists like Maddie and Jack Fenton can only theorize from the few other ectologists' data observing the few ghosts found throughout all recorded human history, which wasn't very much).

It made the ghosts more… human, alive, in Danny's view. That view, however, didn't stop him from attacking every ghost he saw, though, because Danny had not yet met a ghost that wasn't causing some form of destruction or seemed like they were planning to create a little chaos around them. So, statistically (Danny thought), every ghost that would appear were planning something nefarious and should therefore be stopped.

If Babazita's tale was accurate, Desiree's life _and_ afterlife was filled with short-lived hope and joy, only to have that hope and desire crushed, and remain so, for decades, repeating in vicious cycles. Danny couldn't help but feel resentful at the Sultan's wife, even though she had a right to be jealous of Desiree.

 _She's still a ghost that's bringing more harm than good through her wish-granting._ Danny reminded himself. _It's great that Tucker has ghost powers and all, but he's using them very irresponsibly and he won't listen to me anymore!_

The boy reached the wishing well in the park and dug in his pockets for spare change, found a dime and flicked it in. And waited.

He fiddled a little impatiently with the Thermos, then sneezed once again.

"Dang it," the boy muttered as he turned away, his brain automatically coming up with a new way to catch the wishing ghost. He didn't see the young man in his early twenties wearing a suit walk up to the well and wish for a million bucks as he tossed in a quarter.

"So it is desired," a chill permeated the air, "so shall it _be_."

Danny's entire being acted up as he heard those words, and his body immediately melted into his ghost form, not allowing Danny the chance to check and see if anyone had been watching (the only other person there besides the man behind him was a blind old pigeon lady feeding several of the annoying birds). The ghost boy pulled the man away from the green smoke that had to be Desiree as he shouted,

"Oh, no you don't!" Danny forced the man behind him and dropped into a defense pose that he'd seen Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee do in martial art movies.

"Young intruder!" Desiree's form condensed from the green mist into her ghost appearance, her beautiful face contorted with rage. "You _dare_ to interfere with _**my spellbinding?!**_ "

"Money isn't everything!" the man behind Danny whimpered before he scampered away from the two ghosts.

Danny decided that he'd try diplomacy with the ghost first before trying to fight it out.

"Listen, Desiree, I want you to take away Tucker's ghost powers _pronto!"_

His diplomatic skills needed some work. A _lot_ more work.

"I cannot," the wishing ghost calmly explained. "By noon tomorrow, your friend's _fate_ will be _sealed!"_

The calm transformed into echoing maniacal laughter before she continued.

"His _jealousy_ will transform him _forever_ into the most _powerful ghost boy in the world!"_

[Desiree was very proud of her work with Tucker, since Tucker's jealousy towards Danny reminded her of her jealousy nearly two millennia before.]

" _Tuck?!_ He's not that jealous!" Danny screeched in confusion, "... Is he?"

"More than you know," Desiree purred as she floated a little too close to Danny, whose body had frozen up as soon as the ghost made contact (unfortunately due to male teenage hormones, and in many cases, just male hormones in general. It's what happens when boys and girls encounter attractive people). She twisted around him like an anaconda, trailing her fingertips slowly up his arms.

"Tomorrow," she continued as she began to trace Danny's face softly with her fingernails, "his jealousy and frustration will _cement_ into _rage_ and _rebellion_."

Danny flinched away from Desiree's soft, yet enticingly firm, touch. The wishing ghost knew that she'd said enough and slowly unwound herself as she moved to leave, still laughing at her work.

"He will be _complete!"_

Danny's brain kicked back on and he regained control over his temporarily frozen body. He grabbed hold of the end of Desiree's tail and demanded,

" _You change him_ _ **back**_ _!"_

Desiree's smug mood from her victory over Danny transformed into rage as she felt his hands on her tail.

"You _dare_ lay a hand on _me?! No man may lay a hand on me unless_ _ **I**_ _wish it!"_

"Yeah? How about a _fist?"_ Danny retorted as he pulled Desiree back. The ghost broke free from Danny's grip and transformed her left hand into a noose, throwing it towards Danny's neck, who managed to get an arm in-between the noose so it didn't break his neck, instead falling to his waist. Desiree pulled Danny up and threw him down, crashing him into a tree, then the unoccupied part of the bench holding the blind pigeon lady. The stunned boy lay there, barely aware of the ghost flying quickly towards him. Just as he got up, he instinctively created another of the original ectoblast (that he'd been unable to recreate until then, the ectoblasts he made before when training with Tucker were more like laser blasts than this ectoblast that was formed into a ball and was throw-able) and threw it at Desiree, who, once again, went flying back and impacted harshly with the ground. Danny flew towards her again, then said,

"I don't get it! You were banished because of jealousy, one would think that you'd be more averse to it! You're doing to _me_ what the Sultan's wife did to _you_!"

If Desiree was angry before, she was _seething_ now. An unnatural, animalistic roar echoed out from the ghost as she enlarged her hand and trapped Danny within, slamming him to the ground before shrieking out,

" _The Sultan's_ _ **wife**_ _?_ Whoever told you my story was misinformed, for _**I**_ _am the Sultan's wife! What else did they get wrong?_ _ **TELL ME!**_ _"_

There are few people in Danny's life that he is truly frightened of. In that moment, Desiree became one of those people.

"All I know is that you were a harem girl that received what you'd always desired, which was your own kingdom, but then you were banished by the Sultan's jealous wife and died of heartbreak and old age!"

Desiree screamed in rage, then cursed in a language that Danny thought sounded similar to Arabic.

"That _whore!_ It wasn't good enough she seduced and turned my husband away from me, she stole my title as well!"

"So, I guess it's safe to assume that some parts of the story were wrong?" Danny meekly asked.

"That concubine wished to steal my husband's kingdom, and she did! Seducing him! Then she convinced him to banish _me_! His own _wife! And now she's twisted what happened so that_ _ **she's**_ _the one who was wronged!"_

Danny would have sympathized with the ghost had she not been squeezing him harder with every word, subconscious though it may be.

"Can't break free! Can't go intangible either!" the boy muttered to himself.

Desiree heard him, though, and her thoughts went away from the past and to the present.

"You can't do _anything_ unless _**I**_ _wish it!"_

Cue Danny's epiphany as he caught sight of the Thermos he'd dropped when he'd gone to rescue the 20-something-year-old man just next to him.

"Or _I_ do!" He uncapped the Thermos and pointed it at Desiree. "I wish you'd disappear inside this _Thermos!"_

"What? No!" Desiree internally smirked as she realized the amount of power Danny had just given her if she obeyed him. On the outside, she mocked reluctance and hatred. "I _must obey!"_

The ghost allowed herself to be overtaken by the Thermos's entrapment, yelling out as she disappeared within it,

" _You will_ _ **pay**_ _for this!_ _ **Paay**_ _!"_

Any other sound the ghost made was cut off by Danny slamming the lid back on the Thermos with a small, triumphant smile, which quickly turned into a grimace.

 _If I weren't a C student, I would have thought of that three days ago. Oh well, I have bigger fish to fry._

"Now to find Tuck!"

* * *

Danny could not find Tucker that night. Or the next morning. He couldn't exactly confront him during class, even if he'd shown up, so it wasn't until lunch break started (twenty minutes before noon) that Danny was _really_ able to pull off a substantial search. Which, for the first two minutes, was unfruitful since the hallways were crowded with students bustling to lunch as quickly as possible.

"Fifteen minutes till noon, and _still_ no sign of Tuck," he murmured as he roamed the empty halls. He suddenly stopped when his Ghost Sense went off as he walked past a door. Which was the door to the school records.

"Should have guessed," the boy muttered as he transformed into his ghost form and intangibly walked through the locked door, where he found Tucker changing his C's, D and two F's into A's.

Danny couldn't help but feel shocked at how far Tucker was going with his powers.

"Tucker, you're changing your _grades?_ That's _cheating!"_

Tucker was very smug as he swiveled around to face Danny and excused himself,

"I like to think of it as… _academic enrichment._ Want me to do yours?"

 _Tempting, but…_

" _No way_! Tucker, you're in real danger!" Danny thought he'd said it in a serious manner, but apparently Tucker only saw it as condescending. He growled menacingly, all of his teeth sharpening into canines, his skin bubbling into a dark green. His ears lengthened into goblin-like points, and his irises darkened to blood red.

Danny was instantly on high alert.

"Ta-take it easy, we're _friends,_ remember?" he raised his hands, hoping to calm his friend down, but it only had the opposite effect.

"We're only _friends,"_ Tucker spat, "on _your_ terms. But from now on, _I_ make the rules around here, and my first rule: no more _Danny Phantom!"_

Then Tucker did something that Danny would have _never_ predicted: he breathed fire. On Danny. Tucker Foley drew in a huge breath and breathed _fire_ like a dragon.

The attack was powerful enough to send Danny into the wall, but Danny's instincts took over again and the boy turned himself intangible, therefore, the momentum took him through the hallway and into the next classroom, where he finally collided with the blackboard in the Chemistry classroom. The board broke, and Danny could swear he felt a rib crack.

" _Ah!"_ Danny gasped in pain.

 _He's getting more malevolent, more… ghost-like._

Tucker followed Danny into the Chemistry room and watched as the white-haired ghost boy picked himself up.

"Tuck!" Danny groaned, "Please! You _have_ to listen to me! There isn't much time!"

"You got that right!" Tucker replied. "Your time is up!"

He created an ectoblast that was similar to Danny's and aimed it at him, creating a large energy beam from his hands. Danny jumped to the ceiling and flew above and behind Tucker, flying ahead of the blasts Tucker was sending his way (since Tucker wasn't used to shooting with his fingers for a barrel, he just slightly missed every time), then landed behind Tucker and flicked his beret off his head.

Tucker retaliated by sending more ectoblasts in Danny's direction, his aim steadily getting better as he became more used to firing blasts directly from his hands instead of a gun. Each blast left a small hole and a scorch mark in the wall and desk. When Danny dove for cover, Tucker bent down and retrieved his red beret, only to see Danny throw a fake human skeleton at him as he straightened back up. He commanded his body to turn intangible and taunted,

"Is that the best you can _do?"_

 _What a wimp!_ Tucker thought gloatingly.

To prove his point, he shot a few more ectoblasts, from which Danny ducked away and stayed down.

Until he came up and cockily taunted back,

"Catch me if you can, _Sucker_ Phantom!" Then cheekily grinned and waved as he dropped intangibly through the floor.

Tucker was _not_ happy to hear his old nickname bullies had given him in elementary again.

"That's _Tucker_ Phantom. _Tucker!"_ The irate boy called after Danny as he intangibly followed.

Only to find himself in-

" _The Girls' Locker Room,"_ Tucker conspiratorially whispered, before loosening up as his curiosity took over. "So this is what it's like in here."

Danny's distraction worked. Tucker's vision was suddenly blocked by _flowery pink,_ then found himself forced through another wall and dunked through the basketball hoop in the school's gym. It all happened so fast, he lay stunned on the floor for a full ten seconds, until his brain caught up and rage took over.

"Ha!" the boy heard Danny call out, "You got _no game!"_

Tucker Foley would only remember little bits and pieces of what happened from then on out, because the boy's rage completely transformed him, making the boy's shoulders broaden, his legs and torso lengthening as well, which made the boy a full two feet taller than he was before. Both of his eyes were completely red.

Danny's were rightly wide with concern (which Tucker did _not_ see) and fear (which Tucker _did_ see).

Danny sped out of the gym, and Tucker quickly followed with a roar.

"COWARD!"

Danny suddenly disappeared from sight, stopping Tucker right in his tracks.

" _Where are you?"_ The monstrosity cried out, " _ **Where?!**_ _"_

Tucker's breath showed, before he heard Danny call out,

" _What's the matter? Can't catch what you can't see?"_

Danny's voice echoed eerily around Tucker, thereby not betraying his location.

Tucker roared, then took in a deep breath and breathed fire all around him, hoping to somehow catch Danny off guard.

Danny invisibly evaded Tucker's attack before popping back in the visible spectrum, making sure Tucker caught sight of him before speeding off again.

Tucker turned invisible and followed Danny, not really paying attention to _where_ Danny was leading him and instead focusing on getting in front of him so he could make a surprise attack.

"-it's almost noon!" Tucker heard Danny say before his rage took over again.

"Yeah!" Tucker stuck his nose right into Danny's face, which surprised the other boy (Tucker noticed with glee). "What's the _dizzle, Fizzle?"_

Tucker grabbed hold of Danny and intangibly forced him through the three floors of his home.

"No!" Danny cried out. "Don't throw me into the _Ghost Zone! PLEASE!"_

"I wasn't going to…" Tucker admitted, but began to enjoy the idea of tossing Danny into the underworld, "but that is a _great_ idea!"

When the two reached the Fenton's Lab, Tucker kept a tight grip on Danny as he observed the portal, trying to figure out how to open the door.

Which was when Danny suddenly sneezed. In Tucker's face.

Tucker, completely disgusted, let go of Danny and screeched,

"Hey! Cover your mouth! Ooof!"

Danny rammed into Tucker, who flew backwards and then… passed through something that felt similar to water, but didn't make him wet. As he landed on the floor, Tucker's mind suddenly cleared and most of the rage and jealousy that had completely overrun his emotions fizzled down. He looked up and saw…

"Is that _me?"_

The monstrous, see-through ghost roared and flew towards Tucker, who scrambled away as quickly as he could. Thankfully, Danny had picked up the Thermos he had left in the lab the night before from releasing Desiree into the Zone and sucked the ghost-Tucker in.

"No, it's not you, Tuck: not anymore," Danny sighed before collapsing on to the floor (and transforming back into his human form) as he put the lid back on the Thermos.

"Oh man, Danny," Tucker crawled towards his friend who was thoroughly exhausted from fighting Tucker _and_ Desiree the night before while his body's immune system was fighting a cold. "I'm so sorry! I-I couldn't _control_ myself!"

"Dude, don't worry about it," Danny reassured as he rubbed his forehead. Since he didn't have to worry over his best friend or Desiree anymore, Danny's body found that moment the perfect time to get back on completely focusing on getting rid of the virus in his own body. "You were under the genie's spell, and you broke it."

And with that, Danny smiled at his friend, sniffled a little bit, and sneezed.

"Yeah, but that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been jealous of you," Tucker admitted, looking down at his bare feet in shame of the problems his jealousy had caused.

"Or if I had been a little less of a show-off around you. Friends?" Danny reached over with his right arm for a handshake, which Tucker immediately took.

"The _best."_ The boy took a good look at Danny's clammy forehead, stuffed nose, and sunken eyes. "But let's get you up in bed with a bowl of broth: you look _awful!"_

Danny laughed before he replied,

"I _feel_ awful."

"Come on, up to bed with you. I'll make you some broth," Tucker helped his friend get up from the floor and up the stairs, then headed to the kitchen where he found an unopened can of chicken broth, which he poured in a pot. He turned on the stove and left the pot on it, then raided the pantry in search of salt-crackers (and chips for him). When the broth was boiling, he turned the stove off and waited for the liquid to cool a bit before pouring it into a bowl, which had a plate underneath so he could safely carry it, then barely remembered to grab a spoon for his friend, before heading for the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

"I guess we're skipping the rest of school today," Tucker joked as he put the bowl of broth on Danny's table.

"Well, I could always quickly fly you back," Danny retorted, then paused as he remembered that Tucker could have flown himself back just an hour earlier. Tucker seemed to remember it, too, but brushed it off, quickly placing the broth in Danny's lap.

"Tuck, I'm sorry about your powers."

"It's OK, Danny, you don't have anything to apologize for," Tucker gulped, not wanting any resentment for Danny to grow inside. His resentment was what had caused the problem in the first place. "I'm just going to go use the bathroom."

Danny's eyes narrowed at his best friend's statement, but nodded and said,

"OK. Thanks for the broth."

Tucker quickly left the room and immediately crashed into Jack Fenton's large body mass.

"Sorry, Mr. Fenton!" Tucker apologized as he stumbled back. Jack's arm reached out and steadied Tucker, preventing the boy from falling to the floor. Maddie Fenton next to Jack. Tucker could tell she was scrutinizing his presence, since he and Danny were supposed to be at school.

"What are you two doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in school? Where are your shoes?" the woman asked.

"Uhhh, Danny's not feeling well, so I walked him home during lunch. The school couldn't really reach you," Tucker ignored the question about his shoes. He hadn't noticed when it had happened, but apparently, his feet had grown as well when he'd... Hulked. He'd have to buy a new pair of hiking boots.

"Well, take care of yourself, Tucker! If Danny's caught something, you're going to keep yourself extra clean so you don't catch yourself getting the same thing!" Jack advised.

Tucker winced, since it was probably too late for him, too: Danny _had_ sneezed right in his face.

"I will, Mr. Fenton," he said, awkwardly scooching towards the stairs.

"Don't go into the lab, there's been an overexposure of ecto-energy in there," Maddie informed the boy slowly inching away from the Fenton parents.

"OK, Mrs. Fenton," Tucker added, before heading down the stairs.

And completely ignored what she'd said. He just had to see the portal again…

* * *

That is where Danny found Tucker a half-hour later. Sitting in front of the Ghost Portal, Tucker's head was tilted slightly to the left as if he was contemplating something. He seemed to sense Danny's presence, because he suddenly spoke up,

"I've been trying to convince myself to quickly turn it off and turn it on again, inside, the way you did. Just to get the ghost powers, like you, and then we'd be able to do everything together again. Like before."

Danny gathered the blanket he'd brought with him so he could sit and still be surrounded by it next to Tucker.

"But then I remember how painful it sounded, and I stop myself just in time. I can't stop thinking about it, though." Tucker glanced at Danny, who's eyes showed a deep melancholy within, even though he couldn't meet Tucker's gaze.

Danny was silent for several minutes. Tucker knew he was gathering his thoughts, so he didn't say anymore until his best friend would speak up.

"The portal didn't just give me _powers_ , Tuck: it _changed_ me," Danny's gaze remained fixed on the door blocking the green churning from their view, but it didn't stop Danny from _feeling_ it. "I'm not _human_ anymore," Danny's voice broke, "not completely, at least."

Tucker didn't speak: he kept his gaze on the heavy doors supposedly blocking the inhabitants of the Ghost Zone from entering the human realm.

"I don't know if you experienced it, too, when you had ghost powers: there's… something else _inside_ me, it's _me,_ but it's _not human._ And that part of me calls the Ghost Zone _home_."

At that revelation, Tucker's gaze switched from the Portal to Danny, who kept his eyes on the heavy door.

"It's drawn to the Ghost Zone, and every time I'm in this room, I have to fight down the urge to leave everything and _go home_. It-it _calls_ to me."

Danny's lip quivered. He blinked and broke his gaze from the Portal to Tucker's eyes.

"I don't remember how much pain I sounded like I was in when it happened, but I do remember this: I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on _anyone_ , not even Dash. It was-" Danny swallowed as the memory of _that day_ came again, "It felt as though my body was melting. I felt my heart burst, and then… nothing. I don't know if I'd passed out or if I'd _died_ , but if I had the option, I'd wish I'd never stepped foot in there. The powers aren't worth it."

Tucker couldn't hold Danny's gaze as he described what had happened on _that day_.

"But what's done is done. I'll simply have to live with the consequences," Danny finished, focusing his eyes back on the Portal doors.

The two boys remained silent for a few more minutes before Danny's illness made itself known again through a sneeze.

"Come on," Tucker finally said. "Like you said, it's all in the past: we just need to stick to the present. And right now, you have a cold that I'm probably going to catch, so let's be sick together."

"What you will," Danny laughed, then sneezed again. "Although, being sick stinks, too."

"Meh, I can handle it," Tucker joked, before sneezing too. "Ah, there we go. Any broth left for me?"

"Nah, I ate it all," Danny smirked.

"Meh, don't like broth, anyway- there's nothing to chew."

The two boys laughed at Tucker's statement, their friendship strengthened because of the trials they'd faced.

They'd need that strength for the days to come.

 **A/N I know I said last chapter I'd mostly be analyzing Tucker, but he's so hard for me (mostly because I can't find any similarities between us and I can't really remember a time when I was jealous enough of someone to go to the point Tucker did). The analyzing here is between the lines. ;P**

 **This next week's schedule for me looks to be very busy, so I might not be able to publish the next chapter until the week after. The chapters are getting longer, though, and quality over quantity, right?**

 **Once again, thank you so much for reading and (hopefully) enjoying my work! :) Have an awesome week.**


	27. Chapter 27

Within the clean, crisp place that is Jasmine Fenton's bedroom, lies a hidden secret: her closet... is also clean and crisp. Her unnatural order and cleanliness always seemed to tick her younger brother, Danny, off because, quote,

"It is impossible for something to be as clean as your room!"

But Jazz ignored him, because she had accepted many years before that she _truly_ had Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and had used it to her advantage.

When Jazz was at a tender age of nine, she'd decided to keep track of everything that happened to the members of the Fenton household: _everything_.

Everything that she was aware of, at least, but the members of her family were so _easy_ to read, Jazz always assumed that she was aware of everything important in her family's lives.

Which brings us back to the original point: Jazz kept track of _everything_ she was aware of in her family unit. She'd kept a diary for herself since she was eight, but she also kept a journal on each of her family members: so far, she'd accumulated 35 personal diaries, 19 journals for herself, 9 journals for her father, 12 journals for her mother, and 21 journals for Danny. All color coordinated (red, yellow, blue, and green, respectively).

Where does she keep them? Her closet. She'd originally tried to limit her journals to one per year for each family member, but some years were more eventful than others.

This year was one of them. Danny, Jazz mused, had started a "rebellious stage", even though it was only in the beginning stages. He'd missed curfews before, but they were a once or twice a month type of thing where he'd lost track of time hanging out with his friends. However, Danny had missed more curfews in the past three months than he'd had the entire year combined. She'd overheard her parents talking about it one night, and they'd both brushed it off as "teen rebellion".

Jazz knew better. She'd studied Danny (all for his and the rest of the family's benefit!) for the past seven years: this was not a typical teen rebellion. Just seeing him guiltily apologize for missing curfew every night he did was enough proof for her. Rebellious teens don't apologize for their behavior, because they believe that they haven't done anything wrong: they usually blame their parents, or another person – they'd place the blame on anyone else besides them.

Danny didn't do that: he did the _opposite_. It was completely genuine, too, her younger brother had never tried to keep secrets from the rest of his family before: if he'd started to try now, Jazz would know. It would be way too obvious.

Which brought Jazz to her current dilemma: Danny was indeed hiding something – that much was obvious. _However_ , he was _not_ acting rebellious – _that_ much was obvious, too.

Danny was trying to hide something from his family, but he wasn't rebelling against their parents, either.

She needed more data: there was no possible way she'd be able to correctly analyze what exactly was happening with Danny unless she had more information on the subje- uh, patie- no, uh… _situation._ Yes, that was a much better word to use.

But that left her with _another_ dilemma. She couldn't just walk up to her younger brother and demand that he spill the beans: that would be a one-way ticket to never having Danny open up to her again. Despite his recently (and a little alarmingly) dropping grades, Danny was intelligent: he'd also know if she'd try to sneakily find out what was happening with him, and that confrontation would be even worse than the first one.

In other words, unless Danny willingly went to her and _told her_ what exactly was going on in his life, she'd have to accept that she couldn't acquire more data and simply hope for the best.

If there was something that Jazz truly detested, it was letting a situation spiral away from, or out of, her control. She _hated_ having to 'hope for the best'.

So, the only conclusion Jazz could _currently_ come to was this: Danny had begun some form of teenage rebellion.

"JAZZ!"

Completely startled, Jazz jumped and fell rather clumsily from her chair to the floor, where she spotted a strand of hair stuck to the carpet.

 _I'll get it later_.

"Don't _do_ that, Danny, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" she reprimanded her younger brother (a little unsuccessfully, since she was scrambling to get up from her floor).

"Sorry, Mom called for you several times, dinner's ready," Danny readily apologized before seeing the journal currently open on her desk. "What are you working on?"

"Homework," Jazz immediately responded. "It's English, you wouldn't be interested in that."

She was right, Danny held _no_ interest in that particular subject, which was exactly why she also color-coded all of her English notebooks to be green as well: she did this with each member of the family, in case they decided to go sneaking around her closet.

Yes, Jazz knew that she was being a little hypocritical in hiding the fact that she'd kept impeccable records of each of her family members without telling them (unless it was an obscure reference to 'the memoir'), but letting her family know about her study of them (for their benefit!) would be detrimental to the records she kept, since once they'd know, they'd know that everything they'd tell her would be recorded, and would thereby refuse to tell her anything, which would completely ruin, not only her record keeping, but her relationship with her family.

"Sorry, I've just been loving the book that we've been reading for English, it's-"

"About the psychological process a murderer went through, I know, you've told me before. I honestly don't know why you find it interesting, I'd just be really disturbed throughout the entire thing."

"We all have our different preferences, Danny," Jazz scolded. "You like astronomy, I like psychology, and the psychology for the criminally insane are _especially_ fascinating."

"I think they're just crazy," Danny snorted.

Jazz raised an eyebrow.

 _Oh, really?_

"What you will, you said dinner was ready?" she decided to change the topic, even though it was _very_ tempting to start a discussion over _why_ the criminally insane weren't just 'crazy', as Danny so aptly described it.

"Yeah, we're all waiting for you."

"Oh," Jazz was genuinely embarrassed that she hadn't heard their mother calling for her. "Sorry, I was just…"

"You were in the zone, I get it," her younger brother comforted. "Well, I probably don't, but not much can get you out of the zone when you're in it. It's fine."

There wasn't much else for Jazz to say at that comment other than "thanks", so the two went down to dinner.

Only to find their father setting up a small TV on the kitchen counter.

"Jack, for the last time, we don't need a TV in the kitchen!" Maddie scolded with her hands on her hips standing by the table, the food that had been set out on it growing cold.

"I'm telling you, Maddie, it's a great idea! We'll be able to watch the news report on ghosts while inventing!"

"But it'll also create a distraction while eating family dinner! I'm telling you, Jack, we don't need it!"

"But I'm almost finished, Mads!" Jack's face morphed into a small pout, which Maddie was obviously trying to ignore. She was unsuccessful.

"Fine, but we'll only use it to keep track of ghosts. I won't have our family meals be interrupted by TV shows."

Jazz mentally filed the entire exchange and spoke up,

"Sorry about that, I was really into English homework again."

"I'm very impressed that the school's teaching _Crime and Punishment_ in 11th grade: the only reason I've even heard of that book is because one of my roommates was an English Major in college," Maddie praised her daughter, who lightly blushed at her mother's compliment.

"I'm the only Junior in the class, Mom… It's technically AP English for Seniors…" she muttered.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Jazzy-pants, we Fentons are natural geniuses!" Jack boomed as he sat down at the table. The table shook a little at the movement, but the chair luckily didn't break (it had happened before).

The rest of the family sat down and began putting food on their plates. Jack reached behind him and grabbed the mini-TV's remote on the kitchen counter and turned it on, quickly flicking through channels until he reached the local news' station.

Apparently, he was just in time, because the evening program had just begun.

They were talking about the recent strange phenomena, or ghosts, that were recently terrorizing the town and surrounding area. The news anchors didn't want to call them ghosts, though, because if they did, they'd have to call in Jack and Maddie Fenton, the town's local "ghost experts" (and only ghost experts for hundreds of miles around), and they did not want to have to do that unless the strange beings really _were_ ghosts.

"And now for our evening program, we have Dr. George Nycrass, an expert in holographic technology, Nick Renner, a terrorist analyzer, and Tomoko Ishiyama, the Principal of Casper High here in Amity Park, discussing the strange phenomena that have been occurring these past couple of months. Let's start with you, Principal Ishiyama, or may I call you Tomoko?" Tiffany Snow, the pretty red-headed anchor started off.

"Principal Ishiyama will do," the Japanese-American woman sniffed.

"I apologize," Tiffany Snow immediately answered with a grin. "I understand that some of your students have made some interesting claims these past couple of months."

"Yes, there have been several incidents, the first of which was that mysterious meat incident at the end of September. Not long after that, the mall in Elmerton was attacked by what eyewitnesses claimed to be a dragon, which disappeared a few minutes after it had arrived. Two of my students claim they saw the dragon attack the school a few nights later, during the school dance. One of the school's bleachers had been found upside-down in the park next to the school. And just this week, many of my students came and informed me of an invisible being walking through the school halls. I've never heard of anything like this before," the principal explained.

"We have a video on the mysterious meat incident. If any of the viewers have a picture or a video of the dragon that attacked the mall in Elmerton, please send it to us at our website at ."

A video of the meat monster from nearly two months before was shown on the screen. The cameraman that had originally been filming the two protests (organized by Sam and Tucker) moved from recording the protests to the forming monstrosity next to the school, which showed its size.

" _It's LUNCH TIME!"_

The camera clearly caught the meat monster's shout before the surrounding area became absolute chaos with people running for their lives. The video was short-lived, seeing as the camera crew had quickly packed and scrammed.

The feed went back to Tiffany Snow and the three people sitting around her.

"That was quite terrifying. What do you think of it, Dr. Nycrass? Are there any signs that this could be a hoax?" the anchor asked the holographic expert.

"Holograms have been around for decades, but really only within the scientific community, since the materials used to create holograms are expensive. I've heard rumors of a study in Cambridge that will at least make the materials that create holograms cheaper and thereby more open to the public, but as of right now, the people behind this mysterious meat monster are either decades ahead in technology or this is _not_ a hologram. I have _never_ seen a 3D holographic image that size in such quality," George Nycrass answered honestly, which upset Tiffany Snow, since she was trying to prove that the meat monster was something explainable, so she instead turned to the final guest that hadn't spoken yet.

"And what about you, Nick, do you think this could be some form of terrorism?"

"I've studied terrorists for years, Tiffany, and if this is terrorism, it's very poorly planned: there were no fatalities, no injuries, and the only property damage found, if my sources are correct, was a large crater in Casper High's backyard and the waste of nearly three tons of meat. Did I miss anything, Principal Ishiyama?" Nick turned to the Asian-American next to him, who smiled as she answered,

"No, that was all."

"Right. I think that his incident, at most, is a brilliantly performed prank, even though the idea is wasteful and mediocre," the man continued, "I wouldn't worry too much over another potential 'attack'. From terrorists, at least."

"Well," Tiffany Snow sniffed, very disappointed that she'd have to bring something else up, since the event obviously wasn't a hoax or a terror attack, "Is there anything else you three think this monster could be, if it isn't a hologram or a terrorist attack?"

Both the news anchor and the principal knew about the Fentons, but neither wanted to bring them up, especially in front of two esteemed experts in their field.

"I'm as befuddled as you, Tiffany," Dr. Nycrass offered. "Do you have any footage of the dragon in the mall? A picture, or anything?"

"I'm not sure, hey Matthew?" Tiffany called out to someone behind the camera.

"Yeah?" a voice echoed back.

"Has anyone sent any footage of the dragon attack in Elmerton two months ago?"

"I've looked through the pictures and videos, but most of them are too blurry to see anything," Matthew called back.

"Well, let's see the best one so far and we'll go from there: let me know if anything good comes up!"

And then the screen showed a blurry image of a large blue dragon breathing fire at a shop.

"What about this one, Dr. Nycrass? Does it show any signs of being a holographic image?" Tiffany asked again. The man stood and walked to the screen closest to him baring the image and observed every detail.

"I want to say that this is a hoax," the man started, "but it's the same problem as before: the dragon is too large and too clear, despite the blurry image, to be a hologram, even with our latest technology: it's much more likely that it's a hologram because of the reflecting windows from the shops in the mall, but if you look here," the man pointed to a window in the picture, "you can see the dragon's reflection: however, the dragon has no shadow, either. It's clearly see-through, unlike the other monster, which was clearly opaque."

The scientist rubbed his greying goatee in deep thought.

"Well?" Tiffany asked after a minute waiting.

"I don't know. Since the quality of the pictures are a little lacking, I can't determine if it's a hologram or not."

The man sat down in his chair again and faced Nick Renner.

"Is this 'attack', so to speak, more like a terrorist attack than the previous one?"

"That would all depend on whether the dragon is a hologram or not," he honestly answered. "If it's a hologram, then it's more likely a prank, like the previous one, but much more destructive. If it's not… I'm not even sure what it would be if it isn't a hologram, but if it wasn't a hologram, then the people behind it are definitely aiming for some sort of destruction and chaos. These attacks, however, are not like the terrorist attacks from religious or political fanatics: they have no particular target. Since the perpetrators have no target or specific goal or purpose to what they're doing, it cannot be confirmed that these attackers are terrorists."

"A couple of your students claimed to have seen this dragon at your school a few days later, right?" Tiffany asked Principal Ishiyama.

"Yes, but by the time I was alerted of this attack, the dragon had already gone. As I stated previously, a section of the bleachers was found upside-down in the park on the other side of the road and the football field was destroyed."

"If all of this _is_ a prank, the perpetrators should definitely be arrested: it sounds like your school had to pay a lot of money to repair those damages," Tiffany Snow commented.

Principal Ishiyama snorted.

"The total damage costs so far amount to more than $750,000. Whoever's behind these 'pranks' will _not_ be on my good side."

"Well, until we get more information on this, we'll just have to leave it at that. Up next, the weather with Lance Thunder. Lance-"

Jack turned the TV off with a press of a button and glumly returned to his food.

"I don't understand why they didn't call us," Maddie pouted as she slumped back into her seat. "We told them to contact us when they decided to cover the mysterious meat incident. We could have provided valuable data!"

Both Jazz and Danny understood why they hadn't been contacted by the media, but neither wanted to break the news to their parents.

"Right," Danny awkwardly glanced towards the clock, then jumped from his chair. "Well! I need to do… homework! Yep, homework, see you later! Thanks for dinner, Mom!"

And he was gone before you could say 'Ghost'.

Jazz stuck around a little while longer to continue observing her parents and finish her dinner before standing up to leave as well. She didn't say anything as she dropped her (and Danny's) dishes by the sink, since there was nothing she could say in good conscious that would make her parents feel better. True, something weird was going with the mysterious 'monsters', but until the improbable was disproved, the impossible would not even be considered in her eye.

"I'm going to bed. Goodnight!" She called to her parents. They both quietly murmured "goodnight" back, still staring glumly at their untouched food.

Every evening, Jazz Fenton took out five different books and wrote in each of them: a yellow, a blue, a green, a red, and a pink.

This evening was no different.


	28. Chapter 28

On the grey, cloudy Monday morning of November 15, Danny woke up and realized something terribly important: Sam's birthday was in two days.

Sam's birthday was in two days, and he and Tucker had forgotten.

 _Calm down, Fenton, it's in two days, you still have time to get enough money to buy something for Sam and plan an awesome birthday surprise with Tucker._

 _Oh, who am I kidding, we're screwed._

Danny pulled out his flip phone and pulled up Tucker's number.

"Sup, dude?" Tucker's voice was strained, as if he was doing something.

"Tuck, it's Sam's birthday in two days!"

Danny heard something fall (probably Tucker), then some scrambling, then heavy breathing (and mild cursing):

" _What?!_ I forgot! Oh, crap, we are _screwed!"_

"That's what I said," Danny responded. "Did you fall over?"

"No!" Tucker denied, then admitted, "I lost my balance pulling my pants on… And I blame you! We'll figure something out. Mom's calling, I'll see you in school!"

And Tucker's end was dead.

[The only reason the boys were 'screwed' was because both knew they were awful at giving gifts. Two days was not enough time for them to think of something that the receiver would like and save the money to go buy the gift.]

On Sam's 14th birthday, Danny and Tucker decided to try to replace her previous birthday experiences (which were awful) with fun activities so that their female best friend would not be in a bad mood due to a certain birthday that had happened the year before her 14th birthday.

Mr. and Mrs. Manson were Jewish, but they were not Orthodox or Conservative: they kept traditions, but that was it.

So when Sam turned thirteen, her parents forced her to have a Bat Mitzvah, which left Sam completely traumatized. She _had_ been looking forward to having a Bat Mitzvah, but instead of the dark purple and black dress that she'd wanted, her parents bought her a bright pink, poofy fluff ball of a dress and forced her to wear it.

Ever since that horrifying incident, which both Danny and Tucker had witnessed (because she'd invited them, obviously; while they had just become friends earlier that year, they were the only friends that she'd had), the goth girl always kept a bottle of black fabric spray-paint on hand. Never again would she be forced to wear a bright pink atrocity like _that_ again.

Danny finished getting ready and skipped breakfast to run out the door, but right as he was about to turn the final corner on his way to school, his Ghost Sense went off.

The boy sighed, but quickly ran into the closest alleyway and hid behind a dumpster to transform, following the chill until he heard-

"I AM THE BOOOX GHOST! TREMBLE BEFORE MY POWER OVER ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!"

Danny audibly groaned.

"OK, this is starting to get annoying."

Apparently, the Box Ghost heard him.

"YOU AGAIN? IT DOES NOT MATTER, FOR YOU WILL ALSO SUCCUMB TO MY AWESOME POWER!"

The Box Ghost snapped his overalls, then stretched out his arm and threw the empty cardboard boxes he'd commandeered from UPS at Danny, who destroyed each box with an ectoblast.

The Box Ghost was not pleased.

"WHAT?!" The blue-skinned ghost was obviously grinding his teeth, chewing over whether he should stay and fight and thereby probably end up in the Thermos, or flee and come back later with more boxes (and still have the same chance of being sucked in the Thermos).

He chose the latter option.

"YOUR TEMPORARY VICTORY WILL BE… SHORTLIVED! I WILL BE BACK, AND YOU **WILL** TREMBLE BEFORE MY AWESOME POWER OVER ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!"

And the Box Ghost popped out of the visible spectrum and fled, the few remaining empty UPS boxes dropping harmlessly on the curb next to the UPS truck that had been abandoned by its driver.

Danny was in no mood to pursue: he had to get to school, anyway.

So the ghost boy took advantage of his flight and flew to school as quickly as possible, but he was still four minutes late for English.

"Mr. Fenton, I understand that it's a Monday morning, but that does not excuse tardiness due to sleeping in. If it happens _again_ , you _will_ receive detention and I _will_ inform your parents," Mr. Lancer drawled, not even bothering to look at Danny as he tried to sneak into the class.

Danny's hand found its way to the nape of his neck.

"Sorry, Mr. Lancer, I'll try to not let it happen again," the black-haired boy apologized meekly.

"'Do or do not,' Mr. Fenton, 'there is no try'," Mr. Lancer responded irritably. The entire class silently stared Danny down as he slunked into his seat.

Danny had unfortunately already become accustomed to the prospect of never making it to school in time for first period. The late-night _excursions_ were happening more often, significantly reducing the amount of sleep the boy was able to manage every night.

Not to mention, even if Danny was able to wake up on time, the Box Ghost was starting to make a habit of turning up during the day, terrorizing UPS drivers as they made their daily rounds.

Danny groaned as he remembered that the Box Ghost was still at large, and would probably come back with more boxes specifically to challenge him. Lovely.

A piece of folded paper landed in front of Danny with a soft thump. Danny knew that Lancer's back was turned, so he felt no need to glance up before opening the note and reading what was written on it.

 _What's the plan?_

Right. Sam's birthday. The already irritated boy glanced at Tucker, then at Lancer, before jotting down,

 _Later._

He glanced up again at Lancer, then flicked his wrist, sending the folded note flying on to Tucker's desk next to him.

He didn't get a note back.

* * *

As Danny expected, the Box Ghost reappeared conveniently during lunchtime, equipped with two dozen boxes.

He destroyed all of them _and_ easily sucked the ghost into the Thermos.

Unfortunately, he was five minutes late for his next class and was running on fumes, due to his lack of breakfast that morning _and_ having only eaten half of his bought lunch before the Box Ghost showed up.

So Biology was not a good time for Danny.

Not to mention, there was no opportunity for him and Tucker to plot a surprise for their best friend's birthday Wednesday. The first opportunity came in the evening, after dinner had been eaten (Maddie had tried to fix the ecto-powered hot dog maker, but the dogs came to life again, so pizza was ordered instead) and homework had been (almost) finished. Danny called Tucker and the two proceeded to brainstorm.

"Well, she doesn't exactly need money, so that's out the window…" Tucker started out.

"Tuck, we're her best friends, we wouldn't just give her _money_ ," Danny scoffed as he jumped into his bed. "Maybe we could get her a book, or a plant, or… something."

"Please, please, _please_ tell me you did _not_ just say the 'p-word'!"

"Plant?"

Tucker groaned.

"Why would we get her something like that?"

"Because she likes them? We could get her some darker-colored flowers, or-"

"Why don't you get her a Venus Fly-trap?"

Danny jumped and fell off his bed to the floor in a rather undignified sprawl. Standing by the door was a rather amused older sister.

"Danny? Are you OK?" Tucker asked, his voice carrying over to where Jazz was standing, who chuckled again and said rather loudly,

"Danny was just being oblivious, as usual."

Danny growled when he noticed the twinkle in his sister's eyes.

"Very funny, _Jazz."_

The red-headed girl rolled her eyes as she sat down at the edge of Danny's bed, the owner of which scrambled to get back up.

"Anyway, I'm sure Sam would appreciate a Venus Fly-trap. It's a cool plant, and it's almost a natural insecticide. Who wouldn't think carnivorous plants are cool?"

"Did someone say 'carnivorous'?" Tucker perked up on his end.

"I saw that the flower shop downtown has them on sale right now, it wouldn't cost too much," Jazz continued, ignoring Tucker's question. "I think they're about ten dollars, if you go tomorrow, there might be one or two left…"

Jazz trailed off before pinching Danny's nose, who yelped and covered his nose, only to have his hair ruffled just as Jazz stood to leave.

"Don't stay up too late!"

And Danny and Tucker were alone once more.

Until Jazz quickly popped in again.

"Oh, just a warning: Biology might get a little… awkward soon. If I recall correctly, the Dreaded Purple Packet is up next," she mock saluted her brother and spun on her heel, her hair whipping around as she flounced out of Danny's room.

"The…dreaded purple packet?" Tucker asked as Danny's face blanched at the thought. "What's that?"

Danny shuddered as he remembered the previous year when Jazz had taken Biology.

"Human reproduction."

The silence on the other end of the line was all Danny needed to hear to know that Tucker had paled (as much as he could) the same way Danny had, since the test on the current unit was that Friday.

"Can't… wait…" Danny's phone suddenly croaked.

Since Casper High was a relatively small school, the school board determined that Sex Ed would be implemented in Biology so that time or money wouldn't be wasted on a semester-long course covering the subject that could be covered in one unit.

"So… a Venus Fly-trap…" Danny switched the conversation back to what was currently important.

"Let's go for it, you can't say no to a carnivorous plant," Tucker quickly said. "Should we split the cost and have it be from both of us?"

"I'll check out that goth store Sam likes so much tomorrow, see if there's anything she might like there," Danny added.

"OK, if you can't find anything, we'll both get her the plant, if you do find something, I'll get her the plant, deal?"

"Deal."

"Cool. What should we do after school?"

And the boys continued to plot their surprise until eleven, which was Tucker's "bedtime", according to his parents. Since Doomed had come out, Tucker had been caught multiple times staying up past midnight playing the game, so his parents had implemented a 'lights out', which was an hour before midnight.

Danny stayed up for half an hour to finish the homework that he'd been procrastinating, then prepared for bed.

Only to have his Ghost Sense go off just as he'd climbed into the soft cushions.

"Goin' Ghost," the boy muttered sleepily, changing into his ghost form and zooming out of his room intangibly after grabbing the Fenton Thermos from his backpack.

Nearly two hours later found Danny exhausted and back in his bed with a few new bruises, burns, and a newly emptied Thermos.

* * *

Danny was sore the next morning, but at least he woke up early enough to eat breakfast and get to class in time. Most of the school day was uneventful until Danny's last class, which was American History, where his Ghost Sense went off about thirty minutes before the bell would ring.

He glanced up at Mrs. Sawyer, who was in the middle of lecturing about the Battle of York, and tentatively raised his hand.

She finished her sentence and turned to Danny.

"Did you have a question, Mr. Fenton?" she snipped in her Southern accent. Mrs. Sawyer was born and raised in the heart of Alabama: her accent had never left her, and it never will.

"Can I gotothebathroom?" Danny rushed through.

"Say that again?" she drawled. Mrs. Sawyer was one of those teachers that absolutely _hated_ interruptions that didn't further pursue what she was currently teaching.

"Can I… go… to the… bathroom?" the poor boy positively squeaked, slightly cowering under the middle-aged woman's glare of _death_. Danny was positive that he'd probably finish dying one day under that gaze.

Mrs. Sawyer's eyes narrowed for a moment before she inclined her head, accompanied with a 'git'.

As soon as Danny was away from any form of witness, he transformed into his ghost form and flew out of the building, heading as quickly as he could to where the ghost was.

As fate would have it, the ghost was a decaying bald eagle. A huge bald eagle the size of a small car.

"Well, so much for making it to the end of class," Danny muttered.

Danny was… less than eager to go near the ghost, because the eagle wasn't very… pretty, basically. Half of its green feathers were missing, one red eyeball was literally drooping halfway out of its socket, some places on the eagle's body were dripping like melted wax, and the eagle was so skinny it was practically a skeleton.

That didn't stop the ghost from looking like one _extremely_ ticked off bird.

The being squawked, emitting a sound that would be similar to wailing demons, loud enough for Danny to clench his hands over his ears.

"Definitely not a songbird!" he groaned.

When Danny couldn't keep watching the bird continue to make the dead-awful sound, he momentarily clenched his eyes shut. The ghost took this moment to attack, sharp talons first, heading right for Danny's eyes.

Danny opened his eyes just in the nick of time to see the sharp talons suddenly in his _face_ , and automatically switched to intangibility as his defense. When the ghost realized that its attack wasn't working, it flew back and _glared_ at the intangible ghost-boy.

"My turn!" Danny cried out, releasing his intangibility and zooming towards the eagle quick as… not lightning, but pretty fast for a regular human being.

The bird turned and zipped away even faster.

"I always wanted to chase birds," Danny grinned, then realized the innuendo he'd just said and blushed heavily (green because he was in his ghost form, naturally, but Danny doesn't know that yet).

 _Note to self: never let Sam know I ever said that._

The ghost zig-zagged in all directions, left, right, up, down, and all in-between, which Danny followed diligently. He eventually realized that he wouldn't be able to catch up to the ghost.

 _Maybe I can hit it with an ectoblast…_

Danny's arms were already in Superman-position, so he unclenched his hands and placed his palms out, still flying as fast as he could. Keeping a close eye on the ghost, he imagined his arm as a cannon with the cannonball coming out of his palm.

He could feel the energy crackling down his arm and forming a blast just behind his wrist. He aimed just above the ghost, restraining his energy until he'd properly aimed (as well as he _could_ properly aim flying 150 mph 6000 feet above the ground).

He released the energy and watched as the ectoblast _just_ missed the bird, who squawked again, this time in surprise, before diving to the ground, which Danny followed.

As the two plummeted to the earth, Danny formed another beam and hit the bird right on its behind. The ghost screeched, glanced back at Danny, then flew straight into the ground and disappeared. Danny floated about twenty feet above the tallest building in proximity and waited for the ghost to return.

It didn't.

With a heavy sigh, Danny quickly flew back to the school, which had _definitely_ ended at least 15 minutes prior.

The halls were empty except for a couple of lone students at their respective locker, both sluggishly putting their belongings in their backpack. Danny, invisible and still in his ghost form, walked through the door to his last class to fetch his abandoned supplies.

And froze.

Mrs. Sawyer was still there.

She was still there, and she was royally _ticked._ Danny noticed her gaze flickering from the papers she was grading to the belongings on his desk to the still closed door multiple times. She was waiting for _him._

Danny knew that he couldn't come back later: Mrs. Sawyer would undoubtedly throw all of his schoolwork into the burner in her office. It had happened before, Jazz had warned him as the school year started to _not mess with Mrs. Sawyer._ Apparently, some trouble-maker in Jazz's grade had left the class multiple times with his stuff still on the desk and would leave it there for _hours._

Everyone now knew what the kid had been doing, and he was still serving time for it in the Juvenile Detention Center in Valparaiso.

Danny couldn't help but gulp as he softly walked out through the door before checking the hall to see if anyone was still there, or if a camera could see him.

He was safe, so he transformed and ran up to the door and opened it as softly as he could, blushing deep red as he felt the woman's unforgiving gaze from the other side of the room. He walked as quickly as he could to grab his stuff, then turned to leave once he had it.

Only to be stopped by Mrs. Sawyer.

"You know as well as I do that the school has seen this kind of behavior before, Mr. Fenton."

Translation: _I've got my eye on you._

"Am I making myself perfectly clear?"

Danny gulped.

"Yes, ma'am."

He hurried to the door, wrenched it open, and was about to leave when he heard his teacher speak again.

"Next time, it'll be detention with _me_ , Mr. Fenton, and you'll wish Coach Tetslaff was your _mother."_

Danny had no doubt that the woman was telling the truth. He didn't reply, though: his tongue was too tied up in fear to properly answer without stuttering or _squeaking._

He left the room, accidentally closing the door with a _very_ loud bang, then winced.

 _That's not going to help my case._

* * *

Tucker nervously coughed as Sam started picking up her things as the final bell rang.

"Do you think we should get Danny's stuff?" she asked before he could open his mouth to pretend to be sick so he and Danny could sneak off and get everything needed for the next day.

"Uhh…"

"Leave Mr. Fenton's belongings, Ms. Manson," Mrs. Sawyer's voice called from the front of the room. Sam glanced up at the historical expert, but then looked away when she remembered that Mrs. Sawyer was as stubborn as she was. Arguing with the teacher wasn't worth the trouble. Not when this one was fully willing to skew anybody's grades _just_ enough to make it difficult to pass at the end of the year.

She loudly dropped Danny's belongings back on his desk and stomped out of the room, sulking back when she'd realized she'd forgotten her jacket.

Tucker said nothing, but hurried behind her, not daring enough to glance back at the menacing teacher.

As soon as Tucker caught up to Sam, who had been walking at a very fast pace, he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be coughing and pretending to be sick.

So he coughed. Then cleared his throat. And sneezed (the sneeze was actually real, something had flown up his nose). And repeated the process.

Finally, Sam couldn't stand it any longer.

"Will you _stop?_ I know what you're trying to do."

"Do what?" Tucker sniffled, then wiped his nose with his sleeve. Sam's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Don't worry about my birthday, Tucker, but you and Danny obviously have something planned, I'll let you go and do whatever it is you were planning on doing after school, while I go home and do nothing," Sam snapped, crossing her arms.

Tucker's brain quickly went through every possible scenario that could fix or destroy the situation (girls were so weird!) and went with what he thought was best. Which was, in fact, the worst.

"Wait, it's your _birthday?_ "

Sam's mouth opened, then clamped shut. She blinked a couple of times, then stormed off without saying a single word.

Tucker had honestly expected Sam to scream at him or just roll her eyes and say how dumb he was, but he was _definitely_ not expecting _that._

 _Crap, I just said the wrong thing!_

How was he going to fix this? Tucker had absolutely no clue. He removed his glasses to rub both eyes with his palms as he groaned.

 _Better find Danny._

* * *

 **A/N So I know that it's been more than a month, and that this chapter doesn't really have very much, and I am _very_ sorry. This chapter would not come to me, even though I have the next couple of months leading up to the next episode planned. **

**Of course, fate would have it I only get my first (and tiny) burst of inspiration in _months_ the day before a really really important project is due. **

**I might have been able to have gotten _something_ out by last week, but I was actually travelling and visiting my family last week... because my brother (I'm sure I've talked about him already and bored you all with him, but I'm really very proud of him) was in his high school's musical (the high school version of Les Mis), and he was Javert, and he's a superb singer... how could I not go see him?**

 **Basically, April was really weird. I will, once again, blame school, work, and writer's block (there's no way I'm blaming my family, they have no fault in this whatsoever).**

 **Hopefully, I'll be able to go back in full swing this _wonderful_ month of May. Oh, who am I kidding, classes are taking up all of my week, and work is taking up the remaining time I have. ... you know what, nevermind, it really will, because the only way my brain actually decides to turn on is when it's trying to _avoid_ schoolwork. (That is in no way a promise, unfortunately)**

 **A really big thank you to Distant Radiance for helping me keep my hopes up. :)**

 **Hopefully, we'll see each other again next week! Or two weeks from now...**


	29. Chapter 29

Danny left the school as quickly as possible, face still pale from the prospect of having detention with Mrs. Sawyer. That woman could burn somebody alive with a simple glare. [She was Sam's secret role model just for the glare.]

Danny turned a corner and abruptly bumped into Tucker.

"Sam's not with you? Good, let's go." He grabbed a hold of Tucker and started towards downtown, where most of the shops were situated, not hearing Tucker's protests until he realized he'd been dragging his best friend half of the way there.

Danny let go of Tucker's wrist and awkwardly apologized. Tucker ignored him in favor of rubbing his wrist.

"Jeez, Danny, have your hands always been this cold?" Tucker quickly rubbed his wrist in an attempt to warm up.

"There was a bald eagle ghost… it might have been from being so high up in the atmosphere…" Danny shrugged. "I don't feel cold."

"Well, _I'm_ cold, so keep your freezing hands away," Tucker snapped, still a little ticked at himself for messing up with Sam and Danny for dragging him for so long. "We still have to get Sam that fly-trap thing."

Danny raised his hands in mock surrender.

"Alright, sorry, you're right. Let's go."

The first store they reached was the flower shop. Jazz was right: the Venus Fly-Traps were on sale, and they were a little under ten bucks.

"If you don't find anything for Sam, you'll owe me five dollars," Tucker reminded Danny. He was carefully carrying the spiky-looking plant with both hands and scrutinizing it. "How can a plant be carnivorous, anyway? Don't they get their energy from the sun?"

"I don't know," Danny replied, "I think that those jaw-looking things snap shut when a fly or a bug lands on it." Tucker moved to touch one. "Don't _touch_ it!"

"I just wanted to see if it worked!" the techno-geek defended himself.

"Then use something other than your _finger!_ "

"Whatever, it's just a stupid plant, anyway," Tucker scoffed. Danny rolled his eyes. It was obvious both were tense.

Danny and Tucker walked into Sam's favorite store. The entire place exuded a dark aura that usually made both Danny and Tucker shiver. Danny hadn't been to Gothica for several months, however, and was totally blown away by the allure it now seemed to have, instead of the previous creepiness it openly displayed.

"This place still gives me the creeps," Tucker shuddered.

"Yeah… tell me about it…" Danny (mentally) (dis)agreed.

The small shop was Sam's dream come true. There were no electric lights: the only lighting came from the small black chandelier that held black candles. The windows in the shop were heavily curtained, thereby allowing no natural light in from outside. It usually took shoppers a few minutes for their eyes to adjust to the extremely dim lighting.

There was an ebony counter to the right, manned by a young man who was in full goth wear: pale-white complexion, torn black clothing, and messy midnight black hair, with tattoos and rings in various places. The goth cashier glared at the newly arrived customers, who weakly tried to grin at him but only ended up grimacing.

Behind the counter were several swords and other weapons. It was the only part of the store that the boys liked.

The rest of the store comprised of books, clothes, and other little knickknacks that a goth might deem necessary for their way of life. All were dark, creepy, and depending on the knickknack, rather gruesome. Things like-

"Is that a real skull?" Tucker exclaimed out-loud. The two boys quickly glanced at the cashier, who smirked darkly at them and did not answer.

The skull was obviously designed to be drunken out of. The top cranium had been flattened enough to comfortably grip but also be placed on a smooth surface, while the inside had been hollowed out and smoothed so that liquid could be held inside, which meant that the skull was upside-down.

Drinking from the skulls of your enemies had never been so literal to either before, but both shuddered at the thought.

"Think Skulker would like that?" Danny asked Tucker. They had only faced the hunter ghost a month before, but the memory of being threatened to be turned into nothing more than a decorative rug still freaked Danny out a bit.

"Definitely."

"Too bad we hate him."

The two browsed the shop, ignoring the extremely disgusting wares and avoiding the clothes section.

"Think she'll like this?" Danny walked up to Tucker with a black leather-bound book with golden imprints decorating the leather.

"What is it?"

"It's a book on vampires, apparently," Danny explained. "I figured we've had too much to do with ghosts, lately. Thought I'd get her something different."

"Sure, none of this stuff interests me, but I think Sam might like it," Tucker replied, then remembered what had happened that very afternoon.

 _Do I tell Danny?_

"And… speaking of Sam…" he started out.

"Do you have an extra five dollars I can borrow to buy this? It's just over my budget," Danny asked, apparently not hearing what Tucker was about to say.

"Oh… yeah, sure… here…" Tucker dug in his pocket and brought out a crumpled five-dollar bill.

"So either way, I still owe you five dollars," Danny grinned before walking up to the counter with the creepy goth-cashier glaring holes into the two of them.

* * *

Tucker was an absolute mess the next day. The guilt from the afternoon before and Danny's excitement was emotionally wearing the teenager down. He just didn't know how to tell Danny that their surprise was ruined _or_ how to apologize to Sam.

The newly-turned 15-year old Sam was _not_ in a good mood. Her parents had surprised her with another pink frilly dress that Sam would swear on her life was designed for a six-year old. They'd also (once again) tried to replace her wardrobe in the early hours of the morning. She suspected that there'd be nothing left by the time she'd be back home.

The entire morning was spent screaming at her parents to let her be herself and to just _stop_ shoving down their wants in a daughter down her throat. There were many tears and threats of grounding or, in the extreme case, being sent off to a boarding school in Paris.

On the way to school, Sam recalled the brief conversation she had with Tucker after school and briefly considered ditching school all together.

Maybe she could throw herself into the harbor.

 _What am I thinking?_ Sam scoffed to herself. _It's Tucker._

She shook her head of the suicidal thought and headed to school with a more determined spring in her step. She'd face any problems that'd come up. And even if her only and best friends forgot her birthday, she wouldn't give them a hard time.

It _had_ been a crazy few months. Danny had almost died, and since then, they'd been attacked by ghosts left and right. Forgetting something as normal as birthdays would be natural. Completely normal.

No matter how hard Sam tried to convince herself to not be upset, she was still upset. They were her _best friends_ , her _only_ friends. She knew _their_ birthdays! Tucker's was at the end of March and Danny's was in the middle of June! Why couldn't they remember hers?

Not that she'd let them know that she was upset. She'd be… passive aggressive. Like always.

Her face was set on a dark scowl when she met up with Tucker. Danny was probably still asleep.

"Hey Tucker," she growled as she slammed her locker door shut. She saw Tucker wince next to her. Good.

"Hey… Sam…" Tucker pulled his lips wide in an attempt to smile. "Happy Birthday!"

"You remembered?" Sam smirked rather evilly as she drawled, "How sweet."

Tucker's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he gulped. Sam's mood was obvious: Tucker was as good as dead. He'd need to earn her forgiveness quickly if he wanted to see _his_ 15th birthday still breathing.

They were interrupted by Danny running up to them. He took a few moments to catch his breath, then turned to Sam and grinned widely.

"Happy Birthday, Sam!"

She grinned back to him, then glanced at Tucker with a certain evil glint in her eye.

"Thanks, Danny!" she replied in an uncharacteristically chipper tone. This caught Danny slightly off-guard, but he rolled with it and gave her a quick hug.

"Ugh, _Danny_! You're covered in sweat!" She stumbled away.

"I am?" he looked down and noticed the smelly fluid covering his arms. "Sorry. That eagle ghost from yesterday showed up this morning."

"Eagle ghost?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I _still_ haven't caught it yet," the sweaty boy grumbled. "I chased it for nearly an hour this morning, but the darn bird is faster than me."

The three had been meandering towards the English classroom, but when the warning bell rang, the conversation was cut short as they rushed to make it in time.

"Good morning, class," Mr. Lancer almost shouted over the still conversing students. Once he had their attention, he continued.

"As I'm sure I've told you, someone decided it would be a good idea to raid and _destroy_ my office, which means grading your tests became ten times more difficult. I am happy to announce that I've _finally_ finished."

Danny bit his lip, but could not prevent the blush from creeping up his cheeks. He didn't _mean_ to destroy Mr. Lancer's office, but the Box Ghost was… being the Box Ghost, and their fight happened to be in the English teacher's office.

Mr. Lancer pulled out a stack of papers and started handing them out, each student showing different reactions from their test scores.

Danny noticed Sam smirk, which meant that she received a very high grade.

Tucker, who was sitting right in front of him, groaned. Danny grimaced as he realized he was next; his heart began to pound in anticipation for the result. He didn't remember much about the test, since it _was_ a while ago, but he remembered that he only had five minutes for the last question. There was a total of three questions, meaning that the odds were _not_ in Danny's favor.

Mr. Lancer slapped Danny's test on the desk and moved on. The boy nervously looked down at his results and breathed a small sigh of relief: B-. It wasn't an awesome grade, but it would bring his lowering grades up, and that was all he could ask for.

The rest of the day was like any other Wednesday. Danny's Ghost Sense surprisingly did not go off at all, which was good for Danny: they were reviewing for the test in Biology, and Danny had missed many Biology classes due to ghost attacks during the busy lunch hours.

Mrs. Sawyer was glaring at Danny throughout the entire last period. He was praying the entire time that no ghost would show up.

When the Trio burst out of the school, Danny and Tucker both grabbed Sam's arm and started dragging her towards downtown.

"Hey-let go!" Sam laughed. Since getting a 98 on the English test that morning, Sam had been on cloud nine. She'd _almost_ forgiven Tucker.

"Nope!" Tucker grinned.

"We've been planning this since Monday, and we're going to follow it to the 't'," Danny smiled.

That stopped Sam in her tracks, and the boys ended up dragging her for a bit before she caught her footing again.

"You… but Tucker…" Sam groaned, then glared at Tucker. "You're an idiot."

She moved to punch Tucker, but Danny's grip was surprisingly strong enough to hold her back, even when he had no warning of what Sam was about to do.

"Danny, let me go so I can knock some sense into this doofus."

Danny wasn't about to refuse when, a) it was Sam's birthday, and b) she would kill him if he didn't.

Tucker's yelp sounded like a dying dog.

"Alright, let's go," Sam grinned, and the trio resumed walking.

Both Danny and Tucker were quiet for a minute before Danny finally asked,

"What was that all about?"

"Tucker was an idiot," Sam responded. Danny lifted an eyebrow and glanced at Tucker.

"How do you know Danny didn't forget like I had?" Tucker asked, a little sore that Danny hadn't been punched, either.

"Because Danny's oblivious and would have been blushing and stuttering if he were lying," Sam immediately replied, ignoring Danny's sputtering.

"What did you _do_ , Tuck?" he asked curiously.

Tucker explained what had happened, after which Danny facepalmed.

"Dude… what were you thinking? Even _I_ wouldn't do that, and _I'm_ the oblivious one."

"I was _under stress!"_ Tucker defended.

"You would totally do it, Danny, don't even deny it," Sam added.

By this time, the three had arrived at their destination, which was in the middle of the park close to the downtown shopping center.

"I'll be right back," Danny told his friends, before he 'discreetly' went ghost and invisibly flew away.

"Where's Danny going?" Sam asked, placing a hand on her cocked hip.

"He's getting everything we need," Tucker amazingly avoided answering the question.

Sam decided that it was best not to ask and let the "surprise" play out.

It was a couple minutes later that Danny suddenly popped into visibility next to her in his human form.

Sam shrieked and slapped Danny right across the face, which made him drop the large black bulky bag he was holding on his toe.

"Ooow!" Danny moaned. "Sheesh, Sam!"

"Don't _scare_ us like that, Danny!" Sam reprimanded, trying not to feel bad for hitting him.

"You hit _really_ hard," the ghost boy complained as he rubbed his stinging cheek. "And that's _saying_ something, coming from _me_."

"Then _don't suddenly_ _ **appear**_ _in front of someone like that!"_

"Alright, I'm sorry!" Danny raised his hands in surrender. He and Tucker would tell her to stop hitting them so often the next day (which she would apologize for and then completely ignore and continue doing it).

Tucker broke the awkward moment by grabbing the black bag and zipping it open.

Inside were a bunch of litter pickers and trash bags.

"Is _that_ what we're doing?" Sam asked, very curious. Tucker moaned, after which Sam smirked. "This was Danny's idea, wasn't it?"

"Unless you _don't_ want to spend the next hour picking up trash?" Tucker asked hopefully. Sam snorted.

"In your dreams! This is the best idea ever!"

She eagerly grabbed a litter picker and shoved a trash bag at Tucker. Danny grabbed another picker and strapped the bag to his back.

The three friends spent nearly four hours picking up trash (having ventured away from the park and into downtown) when Sam had finally relented to her own exhaustion and agreed to go to Tucker's house for dinner, which was the closest.

Dinner was cake, made without eggs or milk or anything that was against Sam's dietary lifestyle by Tucker's mom.

After dinner, Danny and Tucker sheepishly brought out their gifts, Danny's completely wrapped in black wrapping paper while Tucker's Venus Fly-trap had a dark purple bow tied around the pot.

Sam immediately fell in love with the carnivorous plant. She eyed Tucker for a minute, before nodding,

"You're forgiven."

Tucker slept well that night, knowing he'd make it to his 15th birthday.

* * *

The following Monday was absolutely terrible. Mostly because of Biology.

It even beat the fact that the large ghost eagle came back with friends. Because nothing could be worse than putting twenty to thirty awkward hormonal teenagers in one room and talk about where babies come from.

As soon as Mr. Lancer had managed to gain his students' attention, he cleared his throat and began his yearly spiel.

"I'm sure half of you have already heard about it, but the time has come-" half of the class groaned, "-yes, the 'Dreaded Purple Packet', as one student so called it years and years ago."

The unfortunate teacher with this particular duty began passing out stapled packets of purple paper out to the students, most of which eyed the thing with trepidation.

Some eagerly began reading the text on it immediately.

Suffice it to say: Danny, Tucker and Sam were constantly blushing around each other for the next week.

The eagles were just the cherry on top of the proverbial dung sunday.

Three huge eagles attacked Danny as he was walking home alone from school. He, Sam and Tucker had all agreed that it would be best to not hang out that evening since Biology was still fresh on their minds, and if they stayed in proximity with anyone else of the opposite gender for much longer, their cheeks would resemble bright cherry tomatoes (even Tucker's) and would probably burst their heads from the increased blood flow.

Thank goodness Thanksgiving was that Thursday: the 'unit' they were studying wouldn't have a test, and it would only last a week, meaning they only had to endure two more days of embarrassment, since Thursday and Friday were holidays.

Mr. Lancer probably designed it that way. After that, it would be another small unit on basic human anatomy, the test for that, review and midterm.

Danny had just remembered that his _mom_ and _sister_ were both _girls_ , and therefore were not _boys_ , which meant that no matter what Danny did that evening, he'd still feel extremely awkward (and his face would look like a tomato), when his ghost sense went off.

Habits, when done consistently, eventually become instincts: Danny wasn't quite there yet, but he was getting close, even though he'd only had his powers for three months.

The ghost boy ducked into the nearest alley and transformed, flying straight up towards where he knew the ghost was.

Well, ghost _s._

There were three small-car sized eagle ghosts glaring at Danny as he flew up to them.

 _Oh great_.

The original one was the only one that seemed to be dripping like wax, though; the other two looked healthy enough, even though they were ghosts.

"OK, seriously? What's your deal? What are you even _doing_ here?"

The three ghosts screeched at Danny in unison, which was _not_ good for Danny. The first eagle by itself was awful: all three together were like a broken speaker that wouldn't turn off.

Danny's ears were ringing (and bleeding) by the time they were done, which allowed the ghosts to escape, and a few minutes later, when he'd managed to find his house and fly into his room, the ghost boy passed out.

 **A/N I'm still having a rough time, but I got an idea for a one, maybe two-shot. I'm going to write that while it's still in my head. Plus, tomorrow's a holiday: if I have a moment of inspiration, I won't be stuck in class or work for the next four days. :)**


	30. Chapter 30

Danny felt unusually dizzy when he woke up the next morning. His stomach also grumbled heavily, having not received its third daily meal the evening before.

He scrunched his eyes when his head began pounding. He put his hands to his eyes and rubbed them hard, trying to alleviate the pain. When he glanced down at his pillow, he noticed something off.

There was a stain on his pillow. Two stains.

Danny peered at the stains and realized it was blood. He reached up to his head and found dried blood stuck in the hair around his ears.

"What?" the boy croaked.

Jazz came by just then and knocked on Danny's door.

"Time to get up, Danny!"

She was probably saying it rather loudly, but it sounded like a whisper.

"I am up!" Danny said.

"Sheesh, no need to shout!" Jazz muttered (almost-shouted back).

"I wasn't shouting!" Danny replied, whipping his blanket off to get ready for school.

"Yes you are!" Jazz said back, but it was obvious that the conversation was over as it was farther away towards the stairs.

Danny hurried to the bathroom and took a very quick shower, only focusing on cleaning his ears and the hair around it. It proved to be harder than he thought, since the blood had long since dried out and clung stubbornly to his scalp.

Two minutes later, he stepped out of the shower and started drying off when he realized he had ghost powers and could (theoretically) 'phase' it off.

While the water on his body fell to the floor, the water on his head left a little gift behind. His hair was poofy. It was _poofy._ As soon as the heavy water disappeared, the hairs had sprung up and gave the illusion of a poofy up-do. Danny tried to flatten it down, but it only sprung back up again. The boy sighed as he searched the cabinets for the gel that he _never_ uses, determined not to be made fun of. And if he was made fun of, he'd try to ignore it. Hopefully he could ignore it.

He didn't notice his hair slightly moving the way his ghost hair moved, or the slight glow each individual strand had, as he gelled his hair down enough to look the way he usually had it: rumpled and messy (in a _nice_ way).

He skipped breakfast again, and decided to just fly to school since there was _no way_ he'd make it on time if he walked.

The halls were surprisingly quieter than they usually were, despite having the same number of people crowding them. Danny didn't even realize that Sam was standing right next to him and talking to him until she shook his shoulder.

"Danny, are you even listening to me?"

His eyes blinked in surprise.

"Sorry, Sam, I didn't see you. How long were you standing there?"

"I've been talking to you for the past three minutes," Sam lifted an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

It sounded like Sam was whispering.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong, why are you whispering?" Danny questioned.

"I'm not whispering, why are you talking so loudly?" Sam retorted.

"I'm talking normally," Danny answered, to which Sam leaned her head back a little, closing her eyes as if she heard an uncomfortable sound.

"You're almost shouting, are you sure nothing's wrong?" she informed Danny.

Danny eyed Sam for a moment, before asking,

"Am I really speaking that loudly?"

"Yes!"

Danny thought for a moment, then remembered the blood he saw on his pillow… and realized, in his rush, he hadn't removed the blood from his pillow.

"When I woke up this morning, I found blood on my pillow, I think-"

Danny wasn't able to finish the sentence because Sam grabbed hold of his wrist and started dragging him somewhere.

"Where are we going?"

"The nurse's office."

"The _nurse's office?"_

"Yes! You're too much of an idiot to take care of yourself, so I have to do it for you."

Danny was about to say there wasn't anything wrong with him, he wasn't _sick_ , so why would they need to go to the nurse's office?

The nurse was necessary.

"You've ruptured both of your eardrums," she said after shining a light into both ears. "How did it happen?"

The older woman moved away from Danny and threw away the plastic cover she used for the otoscope. Danny glanced at Sam, then answered,

"I don't know."

"Have you been hit in the head, or been exposed to very loud sounds? You kids listen to such loud music these days, I'm surprised most of you haven't lost your hearing."

Danny glanced at Sam again, then shrugged at the nurse, who turned away from the two and started to write something on a small piece of paper.

"Well, it doesn't seem too serious, it should heal itself in a couple of weeks. Don't stick anything in your ear, and stay away from loud sounds."

She handed the note to Danny.

"Show this to your teachers, then to your mother when you get home. You have a chance of getting an ear infection with those tears in your eardrums, so it would be best if you made the time to schedule a visit with your doctor."

Danny took the note and hurried out of the door with a muttered 'thanks' (which was louder than he thought it sounded), Sam following right at his heels. Their first class had started a few minutes before, so the halls were empty.

"Spill, you know what caused it."

Danny sighed.

"You know that eagle ghost that I haven't been able to catch?" Sam hummed twice, meaning she did. "Yesterday after school, there were three. They have this screech-"

"Your eardrums ripped because three ghosts screamed at you?" Sam scoffed, then chuckled as the image hit her mind.

"They sounded like dying cats through broken speakers set on the highest volume," Danny defended himself, to which Sam sarcastically muttered a response. At that point, they'd reached the English room, where Mr. Lancer was genuinely surprised that Danny actually had a reason for being late that morning.

* * *

"Hey Maddie, check out this cool design I drew out for a ghost security system!"

Maddie turned from the stuffing she was preparing for Thanksgiving that Thursday and gave her full attention to her husband.

"It's supposed to throw ecto-goo at ghosts whenever we shout 'GHOST'!" Jack grinned.

Maddie took the blueprint from Jack and looked it over, then raised an eyebrow.

"Are you planning on using the water heater as the base, honey?" she frowned disapprovingly. "It's one thing using thermoses and cheap vacuums as a base, but it's another when you want to use a thousand-dollar heater."

Jack pouted.

"But it's a great idea, Mads! Once we have this installed as a base security, we can add to it and have an instant defense against ghosts in every room! If a ghost comes through Jazz or Danny's room and we can't get there in time, they won't have to defend themselves! The house security will do it for them!"

Jack pouted even more and gave Maddie his puppy look, which looked very odd on a 6'5" man with the girth of a refrigerator, but it worked.

Maddie tried very hard to not fall for the puppy look _or_ consent to Jack's logic. She _did_ want her kids safe, and there was always the chance a ghost could attack their home while the kids were home _alone_ …

But the heater was necessary for winter, and Thanksgiving was in two days, she needed hot water to cook and clean…

"Alright Jack, but wait until spring: the old heater is hardy enough to go through this one last winter, and then we'll get a new one."

Jack did a small victory dance before babbling out his many ideas for a ghost security system, writing them down as he went while Maddie continued prepping for the usually hectic Thanksgiving Thursday.

"Hey, what if we turned the RV into an assault vehicle?"

* * *

"-and then I passed out. Woke up this morning only to find _blood_ on my pillow, neck and ears."

Danny finished up his tale to both Tucker and Sam. They were eating indoors, since the weather decided to be weird and was raining in _November._

"These eagle ghosts are starting to be a problem. How many times have you faced them again? Three?"

Danny counted on his hands how many times he'd encountered the eagle ghost.

"Yeah, yesterday was the third time. I really thought that the ghost was gone for good, since he didn't come back Thursday or Friday last week," Danny groaned, then dropped his head on his desk and softly pounded it.

"And you're not fast enough to catch them?" Sam asked.

"No," Danny moaned. "All I could do was hit one with an ectoblast."

"We could try to trap them," Tucker offered.

"How? They're ghosts, they could phase out of whatever we trapped them in," Sam retorted.

"With the Fenton Thermos, obviously," Tucker snorted.

"I can't aim the Thermos and chase them at the same time, Tuck," Danny spoke up.

"No, but you could corral them towards us and Sam or I could catch them in the Thermos," Tucker clarified his idea.

"That… is actually not a bad idea, Tuck," Sam complimented.

"Of course it isn't, it was my idea! My ideas are _always_ good!"

Sam snorted and coughed to cover up her disagreement, while Danny straightened as he considered Tucker's idea.

"We need to find good places for you to hide, but still have a good view of what's happening," he said, "I think my dad made another Fenton Thermos, I can slip that out of the lab and both of you can have one. It'll be easier and faster to catch them that way."

And the three spent the rest of their lunch planning what they'd do the next time the eagle ghosts showed their beaks.

The ghosts, thankfully, did not show up until Friday morning, while most of the town (including Jack, who was buying a water heater) were at the mall for Black Friday.

Which was also while Danny, Sam and Tucker were asleep.

Danny woke to his ghost sense going off and, as agreed as part of the plan, quickly called Tucker before going ghost and flying off to where he sensed them.

As he was flying towards the ghosts, he stuffed his ears (which had almost completely healed, according to his mother when she'd checked his ears on Thanksgiving) with earplugs, hoping that it would give him some form of defense against their screeches.

 _They won't get away this time!_ Danny determined himself, mentally prepping himself to face the eagles again.

He found the ghost: it was the Box Ghost, wreaking havoc at the local Wal-Mart. Danny sighed, but quickly forced the Box Ghost away from the employees he'd been terrifying.

"YOU WILL NOT FORCE ME, THE _BOX GHOST_ , AWAY FROM WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!"

"You want to know what's rightfully yours? A cylinder cell!" Danny whipped out the Fenton Thermos he'd earlier strapped to his back and, after punching his frustration away, sucked the Box Ghost into the cylinder jail cell for ghosts.

Danny let out a deep sigh before turning to go let Tucker know of the false warning, since his house was closest.

* * *

"You bought a water heater?!"

"It was on sale, Mads! I can quickly replace the old one with this new one and then get to work on the Fenton Ghost Security System!"

"Honey, we needed that money for Christmas!"

"But it was only $500!"

Maddie groaned at the headaches she knew would be coming from rearranging the budget she'd already prepared.

* * *

The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, shrouding half of the sky with light purple and red. Danny was halfway back to Tucker's house when he felt his sense go off again.

 _OK,_ _ **this**_ _time, those birds are going down._

The eagle ghosts were pecking around the local graveyard. Since it was still relatively early, the gardener and caretaker weren't around (probably at the Black Friday sale), leaving the resting place for the dead completely undisturbed by the living.

Doesn't prevent the dead from disturbing the silent tombs.

"Isn't it a little late to be grave-robbing?" Danny spoke up, gaining the ghosts' attention. They screeched and scattered, leaving Danny to choose only one to chase.

 _That wasn't part of the plan!_

Nevertheless, he followed the one that was heading towards Tucker's house. Might as well get them one by one. Better than getting none.

Tucker was about to fall asleep on the roof of his house when he heard a loud screech headed his way. He stood up and squinted in the direction the sound came from, vaguely seeing a _really_ large green eagle heading his way.

The boy, tired from waking up so early and still sore from eating about 20 pounds of food the day before, fumbled with the Fenton Thermos that Danny had given him two days prior. As the ghost drew closer, he took careful aim and turned the Thermos on just before the ghost reached the house next to his. Since the ghost was travelling at a very high speed, it had no time to react to the sudden beam of light that appeared right in front of it.

Danny landed right next to Tucker as the boy closed the lid.

"Nice job, Tuck!" Danny offered a high five, which Tuck accepted with a small smile.

"Where are the other ghosts?" Tucker asked.

"What?" the ghost boy still had his earplugs in, making it a little difficult to hear Tucker.

"THE OTHER GHOSTS!" Tucker yelled.

"OH! They'd split up when I found them, I'm either going to have to fly around town for a while or wait until they show up again. You wouldn't mind calling Sam? Thanks!" Danny stepped up to the edge of the roof and flew off before Tucker could even respond.

"Yeah, no problem," the boy muttered, but pulled out his PDA to let Sam know what had happened.

Danny circled through the town for four hours before giving up. He went home and called his friends, who had both waited diligently on their rooftops for Danny to show up. They agreed to stick to their plan and simply wait until the remaining eagle ghosts showed up again.

* * *

That turned out to be harder than they'd anticipated. Apparently, Danny couldn't tell the difference between his 'ghost sense' and fogged breath.

What little was left of autumn quickly turned into a snowless winter. The humidity ensured that, no matter how many layers people piled on, the intense cold always struck through to the very bone.

Since Danny (and everybody else) was always cold (unless indoors), he could not tell whether or not a ghost was near, and if it _was_ a ghost, Danny would not be able to find it unless the ghost was within the same building.

Danny only discovered that because the Box Ghost had raided the decorational Christmas presents inside the school.

But when it came to the eagle-ghosts problem, there was nothing the three could do. Danny couldn't look for them.

Then December 19th came along, and the entire coast, all the way to Michigan, was hit with a heavy snowstorm, resulting in more than twenty inches of snow in the span of one day. Maddie found herself grateful that Jack had successfully replaced the old water heater with the new one (because there was _no way_ that ancient heater would have been able to go through that heavy winter).

Sam was spending the winter holidays with her cousins in Chicago. Tucker and his parents were celebrating Christmas with his grandparents down in Seymour, which turned out to be a mistake because an even larger snowstorm hit southern Indiana and western Kentucky just a couple days after they'd arrived.

This left Danny completely alone with his family during his _favorite holiday_ _ever_ _._

He hated Christmas so much. No, really, he _really_ hated it. The holiday brought so much confusion in his younger years because his dad always insisted that Santa Claus was real, but then his mom had always been straight to the point and said that Santa Claus was a fictitious ideal made to bribe children to be good… Danny, at such a tender age, didn't know which parent to believe, so he settled for absolutely detesting the holiday.

And the arguing would _never stop._ Not until the next year was well on its way. It drove Danny absolutely _crazy_. He didn't care if he got presents, the constant arguing and bickering between his parents during that insanely-busy holiday just wasn't worth it.

But he survived the winter holiday that year, the same way he'd survived the previous years: sulking and staying in his room most of the time.

As January and February passed, the snow melted and the weather was finally warm enough for Danny to be able to feel the difference between the cold and his Ghost Sense. He tracked down the ghost eagles and chased them towards Sam and Tucker's hiding spots, where the ghosts were _finally_ caught, thanks to the teamwork the three put together.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, a well-dressed businessman smirked as he stared out the stained-glass window of his private library. Three mercenaries passed his line of sight before disappearing into the cold night. Soon, he would have his revenge, and soon, he would find this… _ghost boy_ that his recuperating mercenary reported to have defeated him.

The man sneered.

He would find this… _Danny Phantom_ , and he would remove him from his chessboard _permanently._

 **A/N I probably could have done this chapter a little better... but I really want to get to Vlad. I don't feel like rewriting most of this just because I'm not satisfied with it. I want to get to Vlad... so bad... he's going to be awesome and cool and bad-a and totally evil, not just fruitloop-evil, but EVIL evil. OK, maybe not EVIL evil... but still. I'm so excited! Vladdie's coming to play! *evil grin plus petting my imaginary Maddie-cat* hehehee...**


	31. Chapter 31

As the weather grew warmer, little daisies and dandelions started popping up in the grass, stretching towards the sun. Spring was on the horizon, and Tucker was in a _very_ good mood.

The techno-geek strutted beside Danny and a sulking Sam, humming a light tune with a smile on his face. All of a sudden, he bent down and plucked a little daisy from the earth (to Sam's horror) and began picking off the petals one by one.

"She loves me, she loves me, she loves me, she loves me, she loves me, she loves me…"

Danny raised a brow at Tucker's behavior, but shrugged it off. Sam was seething.

"…She loves me, she loves me, she loves me, YES! She LOVES me!" Tucker grinned widely before tossing the petal-less daisy to the earth and picking up another one.

Before Sam could criticize Tucker for killing the innocent plant, Danny spoke up,

"Who are you talking about?"

"Which one, this one or the last one?" Tucker continued to repeat 'she loves me' as he plucked the delicate white petals off. Danny and Sam were utterly befuddled.

"…what?" Sam finally asked.

"The last flower was for Sarah, this one is for Valerie, YES! She loves me!" Tucker tossed that one to the side as well, bending over again to pick up another one. "And this one is for Star!"

Sam's face was a strange mix of concern, disgust, and 'what the heck', while Danny simply facepalmed. Tucker ignored his friends and continued towards the three's final destination, The Nasty Burger.

"Tucker… what…" Sam sputtered.

"It's his pre-birthday cheer," Danny muttered so the topic of their discussion couldn't hear them.

"Right, his birthday's next week. Why would that make him destroy innocent flowers?" the girl scowled.

"Every girl in the school loves me! Who _wouldn't_ love me?" Tucker exclaimed ahead of them, throwing his arms up and dancing around without a care in the world, shouting the many reasons to love Tucker Foley.

His two friends behind him couldn't help but stop at the behavior. Danny rolled his eyes and continued on while Sam took a moment to calm herself.

Despite Tucker's odd (but not so odd) behavior, the trio were in a cheery mood. They had just entered spring break, during which they could sleep in, spend the days away messing around and having fun, not having to worry about schoolwork… Life was good. Tucker's public dancing might have even been acceptable if it wasn't so bad.

Danny was anticipating a ghost attack in the back of his mind, since there had been minor attacks every day the past couple of weeks. One in four of those instances was the Box Ghost, but Danny was getting better. Sam and Tucker tagged along more often and were a great help, serving as temporary distractions or sucking the ghost in the Fenton Thermos while Danny gave and took the blows.

But not a ghost showed up. It was a welcome break, because Danny had missed the past three curfews in a row. Hope was on the horizon that night, because he was almost home, and not a single ghost had showed up that day.

…Or not.

* * *

"Danny, this is becoming a problem."

The boy squirmed under his mother's stare. She'd taken off her googles and hood so that Danny could clearly see what her eyes were screaming: you're doomed.

Danny lowered even further into the couch and bit his lip, shame burning through his cheeks as he tried to meet his mother's gaze. He quickly dropped his eyes to the ground.

Danny's father was working on his current project, the Fenton Anti-Ghost Home Security System. The old heater that had been replaced at the end of November had taken up quite a bit of space in the living room, since the lab was cluttered (thanks to someone ignoring their chores). Jack was busy putting the last finishing touches to the first part of his plan, but he was also paying attention to what Maddie was saying, since Danny ignoring his chores was becoming a pain for him.

Jazz was seated in the loveseat, scribbling notes in a green notebook on the arm with the book she was writing notes on in the middle of her criss-crossed lap. She must have had a long thought, because she hadn't looked at the book for a while. Nobody noticed, though, because Jack was busy with the old heater, Maddie was completely focused on Danny, and Danny's eyes couldn't move from the carpeted floor.

Maddie continued her tirade.

"You're constantly late coming home-"

"You're shirking on your chores," Jack spoke up.

"Your grades are slipping!"

"You're shirking from your chores!"

Danny's teenage brain couldn't help but speak up at the double accusation.

"You said chores twice!"

"I know, but when _you_ don't do them, I get _stuck_ with them," Jack complained as he dug further into the Anti-Ghost Security System. Danny's shame withered away as annoyance took root.

"Look," the teen gritted his teeth a little, "I'm under a _lot_ of pressure right now. You guys have _no idea_ what it's like being a kid today!"

Maddie's eyebrow lifted at her son's pathetic excuse.

"Come on, Danny, that's the _oldest_ excuse in the book!" she herself could clearly remember using it on her own parents back in the early 60s when she'd snuck out with her friends to… experiment…

 _As long as Danny isn't doing_ _ **that.**_

Nonetheless, Danny's behavior was definitely becoming a problem, and she did not want to see her son repeat the mistakes she did.

"There's nothing you're going through that your father and I didn't go through when _we_ were your age."

She noticed Danny nearly slipped off the couch when she said that, but shrugged it off. She and Jack weren't _that_ old.

"I beg to differ…" the boy muttered, disheartened at his inability to excuse his behavior without revealing his secret.

Jazz finished up her writing and shut her notebook with a small 'snap' before turning to the rest of her family to provide her input.

"The _reason_ Danny doesn't think you can relate to him is because you _never_ take the time to _tell him_ about your childhood!"

Danny's cheeks burned at what Jazz was implying. He was _not_ a rebellious teen! He was just… stressed… and busy… hunting ghosts… behind his parents' backs…

Not to mention, he'd already heard all about his dad's childhood. It was no secret that Jack loved to talk, and if he could talk about his childhood, he was going to talk about his childhood. That was how it went with anything that Jack was interested in. Maddie was much more private about her childhood than Jack was. Jazz knew all about her mother's troubled teen years, but that was only because she'd asked. Danny, however, had no clue.

"Jazz…" he warned. The teen knew that the way Jazz was headed would only lead to another long story all about Jack Fenton's early life. Again.

"Have you ever told him how you _met?_ Your first _date?"_ Jazz ignored Danny as he hissed her name a second time and continued her list of things that she _knew_ neither Jack or Maddie had told him.

Jack interrupted her as an idea took root in his head.

"You know Jasmine, that's a great idea!" Jack bounded off towards the stairs as Jazz and Maddie wondered what Jack was talking about and was back in two seconds flat with a fancy green and gold invitation for a twentieth anniversary of their graduating class of 1985. "You can come with your mother and I to our college reunion!"

And with one sentence, Jazz's plan to have Maddie tell Danny about her troubled teen years failed epically.

The siblings were staring at their parents in absolute disbelief.

" _Wisconsin?!"_ Jazz practically shrieked as she leapt to her feet, turning towards her mother, eyes begging the Fenton matron to not force her to go with them. She couldn't go to _Wisconsin_ , she had her entire break planned out!

"Sure! My old pal, Vlad, is throwing a huge shin-dig there. We'll take the RV so the whole family can go together! You can learn more about your mother's and my college days, and, while we drive," Jack grinned way to widely at the thought (and both Jazz and Danny's mouths dropped in absolute horror), " _I_ can blather on about _ghosts!"_

As Jack happily said the word 'ghosts', what used to be the water heater dinged and spouted out a large chunk of ectoplasm towards Danny. Jazz's head was in the way, though, and instead of landing on Danny, hit the redhead right in the face. Jack had designed the Fenton Anti-Ghost Home Security System to, at the word "ghost" or "ghosts", attack any beings of ghostly nature. Since there were _no_ ghosts in the vicinity, he figured the machine just spurted out ectoplasm that just _happened_ to land on Jazz.

Either way, the machine worked, and Jack was happy.

* * *

Jazz was _not_ pleased. Her plan to discreetly tell her mother to tell Danny about what had happened to her as a teen had blown up in her face, she was being forced to go to _Wisconsin_ for a week (time she could have spent preparing for college!), _and_ she had ectoplasm stuck in her hair. She'd managed to wipe most of the disgusting substance off her face, but it was still soaked in her hair, and she absolutely _hated_ the green ooze her parents were obsessed with.

She'd glared at her family (mostly her father) for a good minute, before gathering her belongings and stomping up the stairs into the kids' bath. She was going to get the nastiness out of her hair, and then she was going to take a nice, long bath. She needed to evaluate her options, come up with a plan, and relax from her family's problems, even if it was only for an hour. There was only so much one could take before they needed to release.

Jazz forced herself to breathe deeply, forcing her anger away as she stepped under the spray of warm water. She first focused on removing all of the ectoplasm, ending up spending a good fifteen minutes just washing it away from her scalp. As the rhythmic movement of brushing her fingers through her hair dulled her focus on her bodily actions, her mind travelled to other thoughts, turning her focus on what to do with the Wisconsin situation.

She really did _not_ want to go to Wisconsin. From what she'd heard from her mother, her father was _not_ well-liked. At all.

The only reason he was probably invited was because his best friend and roommate was the one who was holding the thing. Maddie and, surprisingly, Jack never really talked much about him, Jazz only knew of him because there was a picture of him with Jack and she'd asked who he was. Vlad had not helped in making the portal, he was studying philosophy, but his roommate (Jack) insisted he come see their prototype.

All Jazz knew from there was something happened to Vlad, and he'd never spoken to Jack since.

She highly doubted that Vlad wanted to make up with her father, but she'd (unfortunately) been wrong before. The concept of forgiveness was nice, she'd admit, but forgiveness wasn't a common trait in humans. If Vlad had held a grudge for twenty years, he was probably going to keep it until the day he died.

Jazz snorted as her brain pictured an evil mastermind sitting on an extravagant throne, plotting revenge against her father. Petting a cat.

 _Pfft,_ she inwardly tutted. _As if._

Amusement fluttered through the redhead's system at the ridiculous scenario concocted by her imagination. People didn't do that in real life. Well, teenagers probably did, but _mature_ people didn't do that. If Vlad wanted revenge, he wouldn't have waited 20 years.

 _Why am I thinking about revenge anyway?_

Jazz quickly jumped from her tangent back to the main problem: going to Wisconsin. She sighed as she realized that there was no getting out of it. If her father didn't insist, her mother would. Not to mention her family journals. Danny had recently been going through a lot (which was to be expected, he _had_ just started puberty), and this could prove to be an opportunity to find out _why_ Danny was, yet wasn't, being rebellious.

She'd just have to grin and bear it. Maybe she could tell Maddie directly to talk to Danny more about her childhood and the mistakes that she'd made. If Danny was heading anywhere in _that_ direction, hopefully knowing about their mother's childhood friend who'd died from overdose at 17 could prevent him from even starting down that path (if he hadn't), and if the situation was something entirely different, it would be good to know.

Jazz turned off the shower and decided that a bath wasn't necessary. She needed to reschedule her week, anyway, and cancel the appointment with Spike. He'd probably have to cancel for that week, too, since it _was_ Spring Break.

And with that, Jazz left the bathroom clean of ectoplasm, set with a determination to make the most of the lot she'd been cast.

* * *

Vlad Masters sipped from his crystal glass of fine bourbon as he flipped through his old college yearbook. He hated most of the people he knew within, but his outer features showed no sign of animosity, only calm indifference.

They were all beneath him anyway. He'd rather spend his energies elsewhere.

His eye twitched ever so slightly when he saw a picture of Jack Fenton again. Instead of ranting at the picture for twenty minutes, the way he used to do for five years after getting out of the hospital, the man lifted his glass to his lips and took a long, satisfying drink of the amber liquid, which had long since ceased burning his throat.

His peace was disturbed by the three ghost mercenaries he'd sent out earlier that week.

"Ah, you've returned. I trust my investment was put to good use?" the intimidating man sipped his glass again after flipping another page in the book.

When the birds didn't answer him immediately, he knew there had been… complications.

"Don't answer," he said after three seconds of complete silence, "am I correct in assuming that the Ghost Boy got in the way?"

"…yes, Sir Plasmius, sir. We didn't recognize him at first, though. Thought he was just another ghost haunting the area," one of the birds responded.

Vlad set his nearly empty glass down and pinched his nose in frustration.

 _Are all ghosts idiotic then?_

"So Jack Fenton is _not_ dead, is that it?"

The silence from the birds was the only answer he needed.

" _Idiots!"_ Vlad stood up and faced the vulture ghosts, _"_ I pay you to do one thing, one _simple_ thing, and you can't even accomplish _that?_ How much will I have to pay to get one idiot _killed?"_

"We-we tried several times to kill the guy, but the Ghost Boy was always around! We think he was sticking close to him after we told him we were searching for the guy you want dead!"

Vlad tried to contain his temper. He picked up his glass and stormed over to where he kept the rest of his bourbon, shakily pouring himself a full glass. Even after downing it, he couldn't prevent his hand from clenching so hard that it shattered the crystal in his hand.

He managed to keep in the curse on his mind and turned to face the idiotic ghosts.

" _Don't_ give me _excuses_. I hired you to kill the fat man in the orange jumpsuit and you _failed_. Don't broadcast your _incompetency_ ," the man hissed at the now terrified ghosts. The room had heated up to a hot summer day in Death Valley, and it was _not_ because of a faulty heater. The three ghost vultures gulped and quickly agreed. Vlad slightly jerked his head to the door, a clear signal to leave.

As soon as the mercenaries were gone, Vlad turned his hand intangible to remove any fragments from the broken glass. The cuts he'd given himself had almost finished healing. He poured himself a small amount of bourbon in another glass and quickly downed it before picking the forgotten yearbook up from the comfortable seat and returning it to its spot on the bookshelf, his demeaner that of perfect calm.

Within his outer shell was a fuming mastermind.

 _If you want a job done right…_

Good thing the reunion he'd organized started tomorrow. While Vlad Masters was a patient man, 20 years would make any man, no matter how patient, anxious for their moment to arrive.

And revenge would be sweet.

 **A/N I am soooooo sorry that this wasn't finished earlier, but I had a pretty busy summer. My family had a reunion, I went to a week-long party thing in Sweden, and then I went to Poland and saw Auschwitz. Learning about what happened in that place is one thing, but standing where the ashes of millions of innocents were scattered... actually BEING there... is another. It is a place I suggest everyone go at least once in their life. I really liked the wording from the memorial at Birkenau: "For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children"**

 **I think it's needless to say that I couldn't write after getting back home from that. Everything seems so... insignificant after being there. So please... if you ever find yourself having the opportunity to go and experience the ghosts of the Holocaust, I advise and beg you to do so. The dreadful things that happened there must not be forgotten.**

 **But tomorrow I start up classes again, and I'm sure that I'll be back to writing more as an escape from the woes of school.**


	32. Chapter 32

"You are the most _devilishly_ handsome man there is."

A licked finger slid back a rebellious hair.

"Your intelligence and cunning have _no_ match."

An eyebrow raised itself sophisticatedly, creating an image of superiority on the man's face.

"You are the _image_ of perfection."

Vlad Masters looked himself over in the mirror once more and, satisfied that his reflection revealed nothing but an articulate billionaire, strode confidently out of his room and towards the front hall to greet his first… _guests_.

The screeching noise of wheels suddenly braking outside made the man jump just before he opened the front door. He mumbled a complaint about Jack still being a reckless driver and straightened his suit jacket before opening the door to welcome the Fenton family.

Maddie still looked as spectacular as he remembered. His heart began to beat a little faster as the woman he'd loved in college gracefully stepped out of the passenger seat and met his eyes for the first time in decades.

Vlad had forgotten how stunning Maddie's eyes were. His heart pounded a little faster and, just for a moment, all he could see was Maddie and the life they _could_ have had together.

His dream was ruined by _Jack Fenton,_ who had bumbled out of the driver's seat, only to drape his large arm around his wife's shoulders lovingly. The side door to the silver and green RV then slid open to reveal a redheaded teen girl jump out, followed shortly by a younger boy with ebony black hair.

Vlad did a quick analysis. The girl's eyes screamed her intelligence, as she was obviously analyzing him and his reactions. _Better be on alert._ At least she took after her mother.

The boy was more curious about his house. His jaw had dropped at the sheer size of the mansion that lay before him, and his eyes only held awe within them. Vlad decided that the boy was no threat and moved his attention back to Jack and Maddie.

" _Jack_ ," the confident billionaire drawled as he stepped towards his… old _friend_ , "so _good_ to see you again," he moved his gaze towards Maddie. "And _Maddie!_ You've _never_ looked more _splendid!"_

"Vladdie!" Jack boomed out next to him. Vlad slightly flinched at the old nickname, but forced a rather convincing smile on his face as he turned to face Jack again.

 _Soon._

Vlad was very surprised when Jack drew him into a bone-crunching hug.

"It's great to see you again!" Vlad muffly heard Jack exclaim. Disgust slithered down his spine as he pushed Jack away (maybe a little _too_ forcefully, he realized later, but ghostly abilities or not, he couldn't _breathe_ ). Vlad put a good two feet away from his old college friend and quickly straightened his suit jacket, plucking off a piece of lint caught from the unexpected… embrace.

"Yes, well, let's get inside, it looks as if it will rain soon, April Showers and all that. Come in, come in!" Vlad strode to his door and opened the it widely, allowing all four into his home, although the urge to slam the door in Jack's face was _very_ tempting.

"Woah!"

Vlad turned after closing the door to see the boy staring in awe at all of the Packers souvenirs he had on display.

"What's with the green and gold?" the girl commented. Vlad internally smirked at her current ignorance. "You're a billionaire, _surely_ you can afford an interior designer."

 _Ah, that's what she meant._

Before he could answer, though, the boy answered for him.

"Jazz, it's obvious, isn't it? The football gear, the green and gold colors- he's a Packer's fanatic!"

Vlad didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused at the sibling interaction, but settled on amused because he had a certain mask to uphold.

"Fanatic is such a _negative word_ ," he drawled, taking the liberty to ruffle the boy's dark hair, "but yes."

"I don't understand, you have _billions_ of dollars! Instead of buying all _this_ stuff, why don't you buy the team?"

The reminder that Green Bay wouldn't sell the Packers to him hurt.

"Because the Packers are owned by the city of _Green Bay_ and they _won't sell them to me!"_ Vlad quickly glanced over to Maddie and decided to just go for it. "One of _two_ things my wealth has not, as of _yet_ … been able to acquire."

Before Maddie could respond, Jack yelled out.

"Hey V-man, catch!"

Vlad turned around only to get a football straight on the nose. And not just _any_ football…

"You _idiot,_ this football was autographed by the legendary _Ray Nitschke_ himself! It's _not meant for playing!"_ Vlad shoved the huge man out of his way and gently placed the ball back on its stand.

 _I should probably get some glass around it so no idiot can touch it again._

Vlad took a deep breath and calmed himself, before turning around to face the family again.

"Now, do you need any help with getting your bags in here?"

"Bags?" the girl questioned.

"Yes, you're staying with me! I've had three guest rooms set up for you," Vlad moved towards the front doors.

"Oh, no, we shouldn't-" Maddie began to answer.

"Yeah, we have a really cool RV!" Jack interrupted.

 _That won't do at all!_ Vlad had sensed all of the anti-ghost equipment within that monstrosity of a car, getting rid of Jack would be a _nightmare_ if they stayed there. He walked back towards the Fentons.

"No, no, you should stay with me! That's the _whole reason_ I held this reunion here, in my castle! Just so we could… _reconnect_ with each other," Vlad suddenly had an idea, if Jack was still the way he remembered him to be… "Previously home to the legendary Dairy Wisconsin King."

" _Let's stay here_ ," the girl coughed behind him. Vlad ignored the boy's comment after it, but still found amusement in the teens' antics.

 _Maybe I'll let them stick around after Jack's gone and not just send them to a boarding school._

"You know, Jack, the Dairy King's _ghost_ could haunt these very halls."

Ah, the magic word. _Ghost._

"I'll get the bags!"

* * *

While Jack and the kids were busy getting their stuff out of the RV, Vlad had pulled Maddie aside and asked if she would help cook dinner with him. At first, it seemed an innocent request, but that was clearly not the case. She could feel Vlad constantly eyeing her and darn it, it was making her uncomfortable! The massive kitchen had plenty of room, there was no need to be _so close_. And she was stuck in a corner, since the marble counter turned in an 'L' shape.

Maddie, a little uneased with the silence, tried to make conversation.

"I, uhh, wanted to thank you for letting me see the medical records the doctors kept when trying to find a way to heal you of your ectoacne," she said while chopping vegetables. Vlad was preparing a chicken to roast in the oven, and was massaging herbs into the meat with his thumb. He raised an eyebrow at her before returning his attention back to the chicken.

"It was no problem, I'm actually surprised that you didn't ask for them earlier, since you're so interested in _ghosts_ and the ecto-element."

Maddie could taste the betrayal the man next to her felt.

"Vlad." He looked up again, a little surprised at how emotional Maddie sounded. Maddie sighed, then continued, "I'm really sorry that you had to go through that awful experience. If only the portal had properly worked, or hadn't even worked at all!" she looked down and murmured, "if only Jack and I hadn't insisted you come see it, you wouldn't have spent years in the hospital with an unknown disease."

Vlad was silent for a moment, but spoke before Maddie could think of any more to say how sorry she was.

"It's alright, Maddie. I forgave you years ago."

Maddie gave a small smile, then turned back to preparing the food. A few minutes later, Vlad questioned,

"So if you didn't want the records for research purposes, why did you contact me?"

Maddie froze. Vlad was getting too close to her personal space. She tried to turn around but was surprised when she found that Vlad had practically pressed her towards the counter with his own body.

"Jack and I built another portal, a larger one that you can walk into. It didn't turn on immediately, but eventually did when Jack and I weren't in the house. It wasn't until a few days later, after finding a high reading of ectoradiation in Danny's room that we discovered Danny had been close to the portal when it turned on."

This time it was Vlad who tensed. He clearly understood the severity of that situation, then.

"Is your son all right? Being exposed to that much ectoradiation would surely give him a horrible case of ectoacne," Vlad thankfully backed away and placed the chicken in the oven. "You said it was large enough to walk in?"

"Yes, we measured it so Jack would have plenty of standing room."

Vlad's face scrunched up in deep thought.

"The amount of radiation coming from the ectoplasm required for such a large portal should have killed your son. It's a miracle he even survived. Did he show any signs of ectoacne?"

"No," Maddie answered immediately, "all I found were traces of ectoplasm in his blood system, but when I took a second sample a few days later, there wasn't as much there as there was in the first."

Vlad hummed.

"His immune system must have flushed the ectoplasm out," he commented.

"That's what I assumed, too," Maddie agreed. "I would have been so lost without those records, I really can't thank you enough."

He eyed her again with that terrible stare. Maddie couldn't read it, and she hated that.

"Children are precious," he eventually muttered. "I'm glad that I was able to help. A mother should never be separated from her child through death."

And he hugged her. And uncomfortable stares or no, Maddie couldn't help but accept the comforting hug for what it was: a comforting hug. Because she _had_ been afraid- so very afraid that Danny would be hospitalized with severe ectoacne, the way Vlad had. She hadn't even wondered how terrified she would be if he was close to _dying_ , but the fact that it was a miracle he'd even survived the exposure? The mere _thought_ sent terror down through her spine, making her knees tremble and her soul _shake_.

"It's alright," Vlad whispered, and Maddie realized that she'd begun to cry. "It's ok."

"Thank you, Vlad," she murmured into his chest, her tears staining his suit. "You were always a good friend. We missed you."

Vlad tensed up again, but slowly relaxed. He rubbed Maddie's back comfortingly and whispered back,

"I missed you too."

 **A/N Sorry it's not as long as previous chapters, but this was the right place to stop. So... sorry, not sorry.**


	33. Chapter 33

**I don't know how you have been picturing Vlad here, but even if you keep the TV version in your head, I beg of you, when reading this, imagine Vlad's voice being _much_ deeper. Something that always annoyed me with DP was how the voice actors seemed to go half an octave higher than necessary, _especially_ Vlad's when he was in ghost form. The women's voices I'm not so annoyed with, but almost _every_ main male character had a high tenor voice, even those that had already gone through puberty. I know it's rather stereotypical of the male villain having a deep voice, but there's a _reason_ why that's a stereotype: when deep voices plot anything, it sounds much scarier (and sexier, for those who enjoy that stuff). My case and point: Dan Phantom. So please, if you hadn't read Vlad in the last chapter with a deeper voice, do so in this chapter. I'm afraid that people who don't know what 'baritone' is, and would thereby ignore that extremely important description, would continue to read with the voice actors' high and nasal tenor voice. Keep a bit of the nasal, but make it deeper. OK, rant over, enjoy! **

The girl, Jazz, had been far too observant for his liking. She'd definitely be going to a boarding school once his plan had finally come to fruition. The boy was… debatable. He definitely wasn't a threat, and he'd be useful to have as a bargaining chip in case Maddie ever turned on him, but the boy was too… naïve. Though the innocence _was_ endearing, the boy was much like _Jack_ , and Vlad wasn't sure he'd be patient enough to deal with a younger version of Jack Fenton in his house for more than a month or two.

Plus, if both went off to boarding school, he'd have Maddie all to himself.

He'd have to determine what to do later, though, because his three idiot mercenaries had finally shown up.

"About _time,"_ the man snapped at the three dead vultures. "You have one, _last chance_ to redeem yourself to me, or you'll find the remains of your remains scattered throughout the depths of the Unworld!"

The three vultures froze at such a threat, for the Unworld was a place of limbo, where a person was in a state of being, yet not, facing eternal existence, yet being non-existent. A living nightmare, in and of itself, and inescapable. Every ghost knew of it, thanks to rumors and tall-tales, and all ghosts feared it the same way humans feared death. Vlad found the tale lacking, since, if it _did_ exist, someone must have come back to tell about it, thereby making the Unworld escapable.

But it served its purpose in frightening the stupid birds, so even if it was a mere tall tale, it had its uses. The vultures scurried away, off to find their prey and rip him to shreds. Vlad followed behind them, having _borrowed_ one of the Fenton ghost-hunting devices to plant at the scene of the crime. If all went to plan, Maddie and her children would believe that Jack had gone ghost-hunting in the middle of the night and had come across some vicious specters. Vlad would cancel the college reunion and flee from the house with Maddie and her children to his _ghost-free_ cottage in Colorado, in the Rockies, where he would comfort Maddie and her kids of their loss and… _persuade_ Maddie to marry him.

Foolproof.

* * *

 _What_ was going _on?_ How had the foolish chickens not shredded Jack to _pieces_ yet-

 _What is the other Halfa doing here?!_ Vlad knew that the white-haired ghost in front of him was half-human: Skulker had reported him to be so, and Skulker, while still _idiotic_ , was intelligent enough to make such a call.

Vlad had initially suspected that Jack's son _could_ have been the Halfa, thanks to Maddie telling him earlier _why_ she'd asked for the doctors' research on his case of Ecto-acne, but that theory was tossed aside when several facts lined up:

First, Danny Phantom only appeared under Vlad's radar a couple of months after Maddie suspected her son had his lab accident. Vlad's own stable ghost form and abilities didn't appear until his first year _out_ of his hospitalization, which means that Danny Phantom must have been around for much longer to be able to stabilize as a Halfa.

Second, Vlad could not sense anything ecto-wise out of the boy, and that theory was only cemented when Maddie informed him that the boy's ectoplasmic residue from his encounter with the Ghost Portal had decreased after time, and Vlad trusted Maddie knew what she was doing, despite the fact that she'd never studied a real ghost before.

 _What on earth is he even wearing?_

That suit was _atrocious_. _Nobody_ wants to see a bony pre-pubescent teenager in a skintight suit. The boy Halfa obviously didn't know how to fight, either. He was sloppy and inefficient with his energy.

Still… he was beating the stupid chickens, _barely._ Vlad decided that he would deal with the vultures' failure later, for now…

* * *

"That's right, you'd better run!" Danny laughed as the vultures scurried away. The victorious ghost boy turned, only to nearly crash right into another ghost.

The ghost was tall, and, like most other ghosts, carried himself in an arrogant aura, which was clearly seen by the way this ghost had his arms crossed with a bemused smirk on his face. The ghost's raven-black hair was roughly combed back into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck, with the end tips flickering around like black fire. His pale blue skin accented his dark, blood-red eyes. The soul's windows obviously had their curtains pulled, for no emotion could be seen within.

The ghost's suit comprised of three colors: white, black and red. It was obviously meant to mimic an expensive suit brand, because the way the outfit was designed and fitted gave the illusion of a broader chest and shoulders, all while slimming down the waist and hips, effectively giving off a look of perfect male strength. Most of the suit was a blinding white, with no trace of dirt or creasing, accentuated with a black belt, boots and gloves, which were made of fine leather. The ghost topped his outfit with a white cape with a blood-red inside, with a small upturned collar that just reached the ghost's jaw-line.

Danny took all of this in and was only mildly surprised, before realizing,

"They were running from _you_ , weren't they?"

The ghost chuckle echoed throughout the hall before responding in a deep baritone drawl,

"Bright boy. Danny Phantom, I presume?"

Whatever Danny was expecting, he wasn't expecting _that._

"You- you _know_ me?"

The other ghost scoffed.

"Of _course_ I know you!" He then turned and intangibly flew through the wall, leaving Danny in the hallway. Danny, having no answer to _how_ the other ghost knew of him, naturally followed the blue-skinned ghost, who had settled himself in one of the armchairs in Vlad's library.

"You're the ghost boy who uses his power for… _good_ ," the ghost scoffed once again, his voice slow and demeaning.He glanced at Danny and chuckled again, sending goosebumps up Danny's spine. "How _quaint."_

There was something familiar with the voice, but Danny couldn't put his finger on it. The ghost continued, his voice rising slightly with disdain. Danny couldn't help but feel like he was a mouse being played with by a cat.

"Aren't you going to try to shove me in your _ridiculous thermos?"_

 _This is_ _ **not**_ _a ghost to mess with!_ Danny quickly realized.

"I-I don't want to fight you!" he stuttered out, cold sweat beading out of his forehead. Ice-cold fear began to grip his heart, for despite the other ghost's cool and relaxed demeaner, Danny's gut was telling him to flee, fly away as fast as he could and never look back.

"No," the ghost stood from the comfortable seat and faced Danny, his red eyes opening enough to show the _hate_ and _anger_ that boiled beneath his calm facade, "no, you don't. Which is why I'm allowing you to leave Jack Fenton and let me deal my _revenge._ For _your_ sake."

Danny's eyes widened as the ultimatum was given out: fight me and die (again), or stop protecting Jack Fenton and live your afterlife. Either way, Jack Fenton would die.

 _No._ Danny's fear melted into courage as he realized he wouldn't let anything happen to his dad while he still had breath in him (figuratively and literally). _I won't just stand by while this monster kills Dad._

"No way!" he yelled, sending an ectoblast towards the ghost, who easily blocked his blast with a red shield. The ghost raised an eyebrow, challenging Danny to give him more. Danny growled and sent three more individual laser-like blasts before forming the explosive ectoblast and throwing it at the ghost.

Danny was very smug when he saw those terrifying red eyes widen a bit in fear, just for a moment, before defending himself _and_ the library from the explosive energy blast by surrounding it with his ectoshield as a bubble. Danny took the opportunity and sent a few more ectoblasts the ghost's way while he was distracted. A few hit their mark, leaving scorch marks on the previously spotless white suit before the growling blue-skinned ghost put up his shield again.

"I'll have to admit, I'm _slightly_ impressed, but most of those abilities are all _so_ _year one,"_ the ghost declared in his baritone drawl, before letting out several small, but concentrated, red ectoblasts at Danny. All of them hit him _hard_ , hard enough to force him back several feet, almost hitting the library's chandelier, and maybe even bruise his ribs, Danny had _no clue_ , all he really knew was that breathing suddenly _hurt_ and he was seeing dark spots in his vision.

"Tell me, _child,_ " the ghost taunted as Danny recovered, "can you do _this_ yet?"

And then the other ghost did the impossible. Or Danny's vision was just that messed up, because there were suddenly _four_ of the other ghost.

 _What? Ho-how…_

The four ghosts moved to surround the confused boy, turning around him in circles and Danny realized that he _wasn't_ just seeing four of everything: the other ghost had _literally_ separated himself into four distinct versions, all identical to the first. It was impossible to tell which one was the original, or even if there _was_ an original!

"No! I can't!" Danny admitted, now terrified for his _and_ his family's lives. "How are _you_ doing all this?"

The other ghost chuckled again… or maybe it was a snicker, it sounded much more evil when it echoed the way the ghost did when multiplied by four.

" _Years_ of practice," he drawled again, all four lighting up their hands with red ecto-energy, "which _you_ have no time for."

Even after nine years of being bullied at school, Danny had never had a beating quite like the one he had in that library. He couldn't remember much of it, all he could remember was _pain pain pain._ The fight had mostly turned into a game of hot potato, or something of the like, because all Danny knew was being tossed back and forth, hit after _hit_ after _hit_ , in _all_ areas of his body.

 _I-I failed…_ Danny eyes closed as darkness took over and he could remember no more.

* * *

The pleasure Vlad had gained from beating the other Halfa to a pulp was quickly squashed with another emotion he wasn't familiar with. He shouldn't have been surprised when Danny Phantom was replaced with Jack's son but… he was surprised.

"Danny Phantom is _Jack's son?!"_

Vlad was so surprised by this turn of events, his mind couldn't come up with a coherent thought for a full thirty seconds.

 _Jack's son is Danny Phantom. No wonder he refused to back down._

Vlad set himself on the floor and reverted back to his human form. This new development threw a wrench in his plans. How could he have missed _this?_ The boy and his sister were meant to be relatively non-threatening to his plots, they weren't meant to have his _same powers._

The same powers that had developed much faster than _his_ did, Vlad noted with some jealousy. Jack's son could only have gotten his powers from the incident with the portal nearly nine months before. Vlad had still been in the hospital with no sign of ghostly ability nine months after _his_ incident.

The billionaire eyed the unconscious boy from the corner of his eye. His loyalty towards his father and family was ferocious, like a badger defending its young. Why on earth would he defend that idiotic buffoon with such fervor?

Jack Fenton was an idiot: there was no doubt about that. Danny Phantom, however, was a powerful ghost, despite his inexperience, that would no doubt protect said idiot until his last dying breath. The boy was also the only other half-ghost that Vlad knew of: he could either become an enemy or a powerful ally.

Vlad's heart fell as he realized that he wanted the boy to be his ally simply because he was… _lonely._ The billionaire rubbed his goatee as he delved further in his mind, completely rearranging what he wanted in life.

He wanted Maddie: that much was still obvious. Having children with her was clearly out of the picture, since the woman was now in her forties and past the age for healthy child-bearing. Vlad wasn't very good with children, anyway. He'd originally planned on sending both of Maddie's brats to a boarding school, but that plot wouldn't work anymore. The girl was too intelligent to fall for his original 'I wish you kids to have the best education possible' act, and the boy was, obviously, half-ghost like him. Vlad knew he'd have to be _very_ close to the other Halfa in order to influence his beliefs and actions.

He'd have to make Maddie and her children believe that Jack had betrayed them, _terribly_ , in order to gain their allegiance.

* * *

Jazz randomly woke up in the middle of the night, which was odd since she usually didn't wake up suddenly like that. Why was she _awake_? Was she stressed? Nervous? Excited?

…No, no, and _definitely_ not.

Then _why_ had she woken up? She hadn't had a nightmare (she hadn't had one of those since she was ten) and she had no reason to be uneasy…

A scream ripped through the air from the hallway. It sounded like… Danny…

The redheaded teenager rubbed some sleep from her eyes. Why would Danny be screaming? It was the middle of the night, there was no need to scream his head off, she'd been sleeping! And it couldn't be nightmares, because Danny _never_ had nightmares… unless…

Jazz shot up from her bed and slipped out from the covers. Goosebumps littered her arms and legs as the cold air hit and she hurriedly pulled on the white robe and slippers Vlad had provided in the room. She wrenched her door open and saw… Vlad, talking with Danny. She could hear him from his room.

"-had a nightmare, sorry for the scare!" she heard her brother say. Vlad's back was still turned, but could clearly hear his mild baritone voice dance through the air.

"What's a scare between friends, hmm? Sleep tight, _little badger_."

As soon as Vlad had closed the door, Jazz made her presence known.

"That's kind of you to check on him. What are you doing up so late, Mr. Masters?"

If Jazz hadn't seen Vlad's shoulders slightly stiffen as she spoke up, she would have believed he'd known she was there beforehand. Jazz had spent all of dinner trying to analyze what kind of person Vlad Masters was, but all she had so far was his still-remaining grudge (putting it mildly) on her father, his slight obsession (also putting it mildly) with her mother, and the smiling mask he always seemed to have on.

"Jasmine!" Vlad smiled down at her, "Did Daniel wake you? I apologize on his behalf."

The redhead narrowed her eyes at the older man for a second, almost not catching the redirection of the conversation.

"I can't remember the last time Danny had a nightmare; I was concerned," she answered. "It's nearly two in the morning, what are you doing up so late?"

Even through her sleep-filled eyes, she could tell Vlad was analyzing her. It took a minute for him to answer her question.

"What a good sister you are, watching out for your younger brother. As for being up at this ungodly hour, I was required for a video conference with my Chinese business counterparts, and the meeting lasted longer than I had anticipated," Vlad answered a little tiredly, his hand sliding a few loose hairs back from his eyes, which met Jazz's with an intensity she'd never seen in _anyone_ before. It was almost as if his eyes were on _fire._ "Go back to bed, dear, we've got a long night tomorrow. Daniel will be just fine."

Jazz ignored the flattery and pondered the man in front of her for a few seconds before exhaustion suddenly kicked in and nodded, murmuring a goodnight to her host before yawning, loudly. She turned away and stumbled back to her room, barely resting her head against her pillow once again before crashing back into dream world.

 _Danny will be fine._

 **I tried my best to show how intense I see Vlad here, but I'm only human, I'm sorry : When I finished this chapter, I stewed over it for days and tried my best to find ways to portray that intensity better, but I'm afraid that this is the best I can do.**


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N I am so sorry it took so long, and I am sorry that it is not very long. I've been a little... distracted.**

Reunions were _boring._ They simply comprised of a bunch of people Danny didn't know either showing off their accomplishments or their children's accomplishments. Sure, some of his parents' _friends_ had brought their children to the reunion as well, but something told Danny that they had been warned to "stay away from the Fenton kids". It was something that he and Jazz were used to, but it still hurt whenever someone made their excuses and left as soon as introductions were made.

Jazz, Danny knew, had escaped by sitting in the theatre room, where replays of the first Superbowl were shown. No socializing, and no being embarrassed by their parents pogo dancing.

At least the main room had food. And at least Jack and Maddie Fenton weren't the only adults embarrassing themselves…

 _Or their children,_ Danny thought to himself as he observed a wiry forty-year old with a cheese hat bouncing around. A couple of teenagers followed the man, cheeks as red as a tomato from their father's behavior.

Danny was about to grab another plate of snacks when he felt a firm hand settle on his shoulder.

"You're looking much better, Little Badger," Vlad commented. "I was wondering if you'd do me a little favor."

Danny looked up at Vlad, a little startled at his sudden appearance, but happy for the opportunity to get away from the party.

"Sure, Mr. Masters. What do you need?" he asked.

"I need you to fetch me something from my lab, second door on the right upstairs," the man's friendly baritone rumbled into a small chuckle. "I forgot to get the present for your parents up there, and I'm afraid that, as a host, I can't leave my guests. Would you mind getting it for me?"

"OK!" Danny was all too happy for an excuse to get out of there, even if it was for a moment. Besides, the man had a lab: even though he grew up with a lab in the basement, Vlad Masters was a billionaire. Surely that meant his lab had to be _cooler_ , right?

 _Second door on the right, upstairs._

Danny was right: being a billionaire meant Vlad's lab was cooler. The ceiling comprised of a large, glass dome, so Danny felt no need to turn on the lights when the moon and stars brought enough light to see.

 _Well, it's definitely cleaner. Let's see, present, present…._

"There you are!" Danny exclaimed after a second of exploring the lab. He was about to go back downstairs when he noticed a single framed photograph on the other side of the lab. Danny put down the present and picked up the wooden frame.

"Vlad with a mullet," Danny chuckled as the first person on the left in the picture was shown in the moonlight.

 _Well, it's not too far from his ponytail now. Dad had one too._

Danny's eyes went from Vlad to what was obviously his mother.

"Dang, Mom with crazy hair. That's just weird." He actually hadn't seen many pictures of his parents from their college days, so seeing his mom with a perm was rather… unusual.

Since Danny hadn't turned the lights in the lab on, he couldn't see the ripped section of the photograph until after he'd tilted the frame enough to see where his dad _should_ have been. His smile fell.

"Wait a minute…"

 _Why would Vlad Masters rip out Dad's face in this old picture? It looks like the same picture those birds had…_

Danny's Ghost Sense startled the boy out of his thoughts. His core immediately reacted and moments later Danny was attacked by two ectopi.

 _No way…_ Danny thought as he quickly dismantled the ghosts. He didn't have much of a break, though, because seconds later he was trapped within a net, with Skulker grinning at him from the shadows.

" _Skulker?!_ What are _you_ doing here? Where- how-"

"My employer prefers keeping his mercenaries well equipped," the hunter ghost explained, cutting off Danny's stuttered confusion by electrocuting the net that Danny was entrapped in.

Memories of a blinding light along with _so much pain_ flew through Danny's head. Prickling stings turned to burning shock as Danny's muscles recalled the final moment.

 _No! Not again!_ The tortured boy quickly forced himself out of the net, flying up to face Skulker. Phantom pains prickled along Danny's body, even after escaping the electrifying entrapment.

Danny's yell did not stir Skulker out of his shock of seeing his prey escape his net _while being electrocuted._ Danny easily kicked Skulker in the head, throwing the ghost across the lab.

"Who got you back in your ectoskeleton?" the ghost boy demanded.

Skulker was apparently in no mood to talk, because he quickly tossed a small black cube at Danny. As soon as it hit his foot, it expanded and entrapped the boy, leaving only his head visible.

 _What the… I can't phase out of this!_ Danny quickly realized. He tried to turn intangible once more, only to be electrocuted again for much longer. His tortured screams would have been heard by all in the mansion if the music in the ballroom hadn't been so loud.

One person heard it, however, and quickly made his way to the lab.

* * *

Danny woke slowly from unconsciousness, briefly wondering why a green blade was about to slice through his neck, when somebody in the room said… something about "not killing the boy", and another ghost flew away. Had that been Skulker? He blinked away his blurry vision and was horrified to see the ghost from his nightmare.

"You…." He muttered in disbelief.

The other apparition grinned rather maliciously.

"Me. You're rather lucky that you're not like regular ghosts, otherwise I would have ended you last night. Or, maybe that makes you _unlucky,"_ the ghost's smile widened into a smirk and Danny noticed the other ghost's sharpened canines for the first time. Were they there last night?

"Who- who _are_ you?" he weakly asked. The electrocution the box had given him had severely weakened his ghost half, and had continued even after he had transformed back to his human half since Skulker was feeling rather vengeful. Danny couldn't remember much of it, though, since he'd blacked out almost immediately after reverting to his human form, and there wasn't much to remember except for flashbacks to the Accident and mere _pain._

"I am known to the other ghosts as Plasmius," the ghost, _Plasmius_ , answered, " _Vlad_ _Plasmius."_

If Danny had been at full capacity, he would have called the lame James Bond knock-off. His brain, however, was still smoking and he couldn't bring himself to really care.

The James Bond Knock-off continued.

"You, Danny _Phantom,_ " he sneered, "you are both human _and_ ghost, something that I have only seen _once_ before!"

"What?!"

The revelation that there had been someone else like him, someone else that had gone through what _he_ was going through, was a huge relief. Even though Danny was currently trapped and probably in mortal danger, he suddenly felt as if a large weight had been removed from his shoulders. Plasmius ignored the boy's outburst and continued his villain speech.

"You have _great_ _potential,_ and _power_ , _**raw power!"**_ Plasmius was practically salivating, Danny could see it even while his brain was recovering from the frying and through his attempts to escape from the box that was…. doing _something_ to his powers.

"I can teach you _everything_ I know, and trust me, boy, I am _very_ knowledgeable when it comes to your kind. _Together,_ we can _conquer_ the world!" Danny stopped struggling against the box for a moment to stare incredulously at Plasmius.

"Who do you think you are, _Darth Vader?!"_ the boy couldn't help but blurt out. The similarities in the villain speech were just too similar to _not_ call out, the entire situation just screamed _Empire Strikes Back_ to him.

"Who?" the ghost paused, confused with the boy's sudden change in attitude. Danny's mouth dropped open as he realized that the ghost in front of him had _no clue_ of how cliché he'd just been.

"You're acting like a stereotypical villain. Let me guess, you were just about to say 'Join me, and together we can rule the world as father and son' or something like that," Danny mocked, mimicking Darth Vader's deep voice as he quoted him.

"No!" Plasmius countered almost immediately. He was still confused about who this _Darth Vader_ was, the name was familiar, but he just couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it from. He'd never admit it, but he _was_ about to say exactly what the boy had just said, verbatim.

"Sure, whatever. The answer's _no_. _No_ , I will not accept your offer to teach me, _no_ , I will not join you, and _**no**_ , I will _not_ replace my father with _you."_

 _Let's hope I paid enough attention to Jazz's psychology bunk to have accurately read what this guy wanted. It_ _ **was**_ _obvious, right? He wants to kill Dad_ _ **and**_ _offers me to rule the world with him? It's basic comic-book villainy!_

Plasmius actually _slumped_. The moment, however, passed quickly and he soon straightened himself up again and sneered at Danny.

"You thought I wanted _you_ as a _son?_ Don't be absurd, who would want _you_ for a son? Your idiot _father_?" Plasmius shook his head. "I guess _idiocy_ runs on the male side of the family. I offered you an easy way to get through everything being a Halfa would throw at you, but since you've so _politely_ declined my offer, I'll simply leave you to the wolves. By the time you've reached adulthood, you'll have wished your accident killed you _all_ the way."

With that, the ghost pulled his cape around him and disappeared in a bright red flash, leaving Danny inside his trap. Alone.

With no way to protect his father from Plasmius.


	35. Chapter 35

**A/N So this is my 1 year anniversary of posting this story! Yay! I am really surprised with myself that I managed to write this in two days. School's been crazy these past couple of weeks, and today I had an exam in statistics, which I think went pretty well, if anyone was interested in that part of my life XD**

 **I have to give a small warning for this chapter, though, because it gets a little... weird. And gross. It's in the first quarter, as I was writing it, my mouth couldn't stop gagging. Don't worry, it's still T-rated, it's just... a really gross concept. This is also going to be super different from how the episode ended!**

* * *

Vlad Masters reappeared within his bedroom and split himself into three, one of his duplicates remaining in human form while he and the other duplicate transformed into Plasmius. Vlad _Masters_ left quickly to rejoin the party, while the two Plasmius's flew intangibly into the ballroom. Vlad's duplicate quickly located Harriet Chin, Maddie's old roommate, and overshadowed her. The fact that she was speaking to a bored Jack was more than Vlad could have asked for: made implementing his plan that much easier.

"- _then,_ I covered the Baboon Crisis in Uganda-" Harriet's eyes went blank for a moment as Vlad's duplicate took control of her body and smoothly slid himself into the conversation, as Jack was _utterly bored._

"Am I _boring_ you, _Jack?"_ Vlad demanded in his best 'Harriet Chin' voice.

"Frankly, _yes!"_ Jack managed to say before the original Plasmius overshadowed his body. He raised his eyebrow at Harriet. "What do you say we… _liven up_ this _shin-dig?"_

A surprisingly flirtatious smirk grew on Harriet's usually stern, professional face.

"You read my mind."

* * *

Maddie was stuck in conversation with Hugh, a sweet man who loved geology a little _too_ much.

"Can you believe it?" she suddenly interrupted him. Hugh seemed a little astonished, but then he caught her gaze and realized what she was talking about.

"That it's been twenty years? Feels like yesterday," he turned to look at what Maddie was gazing at, which was the crowd of dancing forty-something year-olds, trying their best to relive their prime years.

The two remained silent for a few minutes, until Hugh furrowed his brow as he caught sight of something.

"Were Jack and Harri close before you two got together?"

"No, Harriet couldn't stand being around Jack, he always seemed to get on her nerves," Maddie answered.

"Well, I don't want to think anything bad about either of them, but…" Hugh's eyebrows came even closer together, "I'm pretty sure that they just went into a closet."

"What?!" Maddie's head swiveled to where Hugh was looking. "Where?"

Hugh pointed to a door on the other side of the room. Maddie's pupils narrowed, allowing her purple irises to flash their anger, if only momentarily, as she reined in her knee-jerk emotions to the insinuation and the _possibility_ that her husband, _Jack_ , was _cheating_ on her. With _Harriet_ , of all people!

 _Jack is_ _ **not**_ _that kind of person,_ Maddie calmed herself. _He's probably just showing her a sample of ectoplasm. It does glow very brightly in the dark._

"I'm _sure_ there's a proper explanation. Wait here," she told Hugh.

"You sure?" he asked, "I could come-"

"I'm sure," Maddie glowered.

* * *

The Vlad controlling Harriet had quickly glanced around the room, making sure that the geologist -whatever his name was- that was conversing with Maddie saw Harriet and Jack slip inside the room. The plan was cliché, but should do the trick.

As soon as the door closed, the Vlad controlling Jack practically threw himself at Harriet – who threw herself (himself) with equal amounts of fervor – and practically began sucking each other's faces off.

Vlad immediately tried to picture Maddie in his mind to ease himself. Harriet was attractive, considering her age, but she wasn't _Maddie. Maddie_ , with her short bob-cut hair that was smooth and thick, whereas Harriet's was smooth, yes, but thin. _Maddie's_ lips were full, and these were not.

Harriet wasn't _Maddie._ But that would soon change, because any minute now, Maddie would open that door to see her husband and best friend from college having a very _heated_ moment. Vlad quickly repositioned the Harriet-being-controlled-by-his-duplicate so that Harriet's back was to the door.

Maybe there had been a better way to go, because despite all his hatred for Jack, he'd somehow forgotten that he'd have memories of heatedly making out with Jack as soon as he released his duplicate.

 _Well, it can't be worse than that dare from sophomore year._

Well, he'd made his bed, there wasn't going back now.

 _Technically, you're kissing yourself._

 _Well,_ _when you put it_ _ **that**_ _way… this wasn't too bad a plan after all. Why hadn't he come up with this before?_

The kissing session then became much more heated. Both Vlad's could hear footsteps that simply _had_ to be Maddie's approaching, so the sucking transformed into devouring. Harriet-Vlad started making little moans, and the Vlad controlling Jack had perfected the fantasy in his head so much that he didn't hear Harriet's voice, but _Maddie's_ , which elicited a large purr from his core.

And then it didn't matter that he was in Jack's _and_ Harriet's body, in his head, he was himself, and Harriet was _Maddie_ and Maddie was _willing._

And then the door opened, revealing a shocked, then enraged, Madeline Fenton.

* * *

Daniel James Fenton was having the worst day of his life. That included the day of the Accident, because he was completely powerless. There was _nothing_ he could do to save his dad from the monster with a vendetta. Was his mom on the hit list as well? Jazz? Were all those people downstairs about to die?

Even if Danny had his powers, there was _nothing_ he could do. Vlad Plasmius was so much _stronger_ than he was! There was _no way_ Danny would be able to beat him.

"It's _hopeless,"_ the boy moaned as he rested his chin against the edge of the box. He would have laid his head on it, but the way the box was designed prevented him from doing that. His eyes misted over as his father's doom settled over him, and he sniffled his nose as it had begun to run. A brightly colored package at the other end of the room caught his eye.

 _Vlad's present to Dad!_

Hope blossomed in his chest as Danny remembered that Vlad knew where he was and would probably go looking for him if something bad happened! Maybe Plasmius wouldn't attack until later!

"Help!" Danny called out, hoping _someone_ would hear him. "HELP! VLAD? MOM? DAD? ANYBODY?!"

He kicked the inside of the box, but it did nothing. Danny continued yelling for a few minutes, but then stopped as his voice began to grow hoarse. Just then, his ghost sense chilled through his mouth and Danny groaned, figuring it was probably Skulker, come back to claim his 'prize'.

"Well, you look like you're in a mighty-fine pinch there, young lad!" a cheerful voice commented above him. Danny craned his neck and saw… a fat ghost in a red, fur trimmed bathrobe with a crown that looked to be made of cheese on his head. The green ghost had a short staff, also cheesily themed, and was sporting a fine, curled mustache.

The ghost looked ridiculous, but Danny _had_ been beaten by a vampire Darth Vader wannabe only minutes previously _and_ the night before, so he wouldn't deem this ghost to be harmless, either.

"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously, "Have you come to churn me into butter, or fill me with holes like Swiss cheese?"

"Wow, you sure got a temper there, laddie," the ghost commented, fiddling with the right end of his curly mustache. "But to answer your question, I'm the Dairy King!"

"Well, whatever you're planning on doing, I'd rather get over with it, it's not like I'll be going anywhere," the halfa retorted bitterly.

"Now, hold your horses, laddie, we old folk can't catch up fast enough with you youngins, I'm trying to figure this black box out," the Dairy King said as he circled around Danny, who was a little confused with what the ghost was doing.

"What?" the boy asked, just before the ghost yelled out a triumphant "Aha!" and pressed something on the side of the box. Just as quickly as it had grown, it shrunk into the size of a small cube, which Danny immediately kicked away.

"I don't understand!" the young halfa said to the older ghost. "I thought you wanted to torture me! Why did you free me?"

The Dairy King chuckled before replying,

"You've sure got a funny sense of humor, kiddo. Why would I torture you?"

"I don't know," Danny answered, "that's just what every ghost I've met wants to do."

"Ach, don't mind them, laddie," the ghost's cheery yellow aura momentarily flashed a darker tone, "they're bad eggs, most ghosts just want to be left alone. I wouldn't have freed you if I knew you wouldn't wreak havoc on my new tenant. He's been ignoring his bills, and I know he's got the resources to pay them!"

"Wait, what are you _talking_ about?" the boy was so confused. What had the ghost just _said?_

"Vlad, my tenant! I let him move in, he agreed to pay rent in pure ectoplasm, straight from the Zone. Good stuff, you should try it sometime!"

"Vlad… which Vlad? Vlad _Masters?"_ Danny asked, suddenly confused as to which Vlad the ghost was asking him to beat up. If it was Masters, at least Danny would be able to try to convince the man to pay rent, and _not_ have to beat him up.

"Sure, whatever name he comes up with. I just call him Vlad because every single name he goes by has that… somewhere!" the ghost smacked his lips, then pointed the tip of his cheese staff at Danny. "Now, go tell my tenant that he owes me two thousand vials of pure, Ghost-Zone ectoplasm!"

The ghost turned to leave, but then swiveled around and tossed a glowing green vial to Danny.

"Here, kiddo, a ghost's gotta eat, even Halfa's like you and Vlad. Don't forget, two thousand vials!"

The Dairy King turned and left before he could see Danny's jaw drop in shock, almost dropping the precious vial of pure ectoplasm.

* * *

There was _no way._ It couldn't be true.

Vlad Masters was a _halfa._ Or was Vlad Plasmius the halfa? The Dairy King had been extremely vague, not purposefully, just in the old reminiscent grandpa way. Danny couldn't tell if he'd been talking about Masters or Plasmius.

Masters obviously lived in the mansion, but Plasmius was obviously comfortable in the place, too, so that meant that both of them lived there. Masters obviously had the means to get pure ectoplasm, whatever _that_ was (obviously, the vial he managed to hold on to, despite his shock, held pure ectoplasm, but his parents had never mentioned it in their studies), but Plasmius was a ghost, and a powerful one at that, so he, too, had the means to get it, wherever pure ectoplasm was 'harvested'.

 _Which Vlad was the Halfa?_

Danny knew that if Plasmius was the Halfa, he'd have to figure out who his human half was if Danny was to face him. If Vlad Masters was the Halfa, it wasn't as big of a deal, since Danny would happily talk to him about being a halfa, even though he was kind of rude and a bit pushy with Maddie.

Danny's eyes snapped open as his thoughts flew to a complete halt. Plasmius was probably about to kill his dad, might have already _done_ so, and here he was, wondering if Masters or Plasmius was a halfa!

He'd have to figure it out later, at the moment, he needed to get to wherever his dad was and save him from Plasmius.

Danny quickly stuffed the vial of ectoplasm into one of his suit's deep pockets and transformed into Phantom, flying invisibly and intangibly through the mansion until he reached the ballroom, where his mom and dad had spent most of the evening. To his surprise, the music had stopped and everyone had gathered around…

Danny almost fell to the ground at the sight before him. Vlad Masters and another man was trying to hold back Maddie from leaping at Jack and Harri, who were cornered in an open closet door. Jack seemed to be trying to protect Harri from Maddie.

 _What is happening?!_

Danny flew closer to try to hear more of what was being said.

"-I can't _believe_ you, Jack! _ALL THIS TIME, YOU'VE BEEN SEEING_ _ **HARRIET**_ _?!"_ Maddie screamed, tears streaming down her face. Danny's heart panged with grief, not willing to believe the situation in front of him, but knowing it was happening all the same.

"Didn't you know I'd _turn_ on you, Madeline? _Who_ could love _you?"_ Jack sneered at the bawling woman, eyes glinting red… wait…

Danny looked closer and realized that Jack _and_ Harriet's eyes were almost _glowing_ , and they were _red_.

Several things happened at once. Maddie slammed her foot down on Vlad Master's foot, who let go in surprise, allowing Maddie to easily break free from the other man's hold. Danny noticed both Jack and Harriet's red eyes flicker back to their original color for a fraction of a second before Harriet's returned to red, but Jack had gripped his short hair and was breathing out –

" _Ghost… Overpowering me…"_ he breathed out heavily, turning to Maddie, who, despite her rage, had heard Jack's words, " _Maddie…_ _ **run!**_ _"_

Jack let out another groan before letting go with a deafening warning.

" _ **RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!"**_

And as Jack's yell echoed through the ballroom, a chilling energy spread and pierced all that were present to the bone.

The emotions in the room turned from curiosity to open fear, and chaos reigned as most of the people in the ballroom rushed towards the nearest exit. People were tossed to the floor and trampled, all fearing what was happening with Jack Fenton.

Danny knew it was time to act, because Plasmius, controlling Jack Fenton's massive frame, was a force to be reckoned with. Jack overturned tables and thrust them at others like a huge staff, knocking over fleeing innocents, some of which went flying and skidding to the other side of the room.

The young halfa flew as fast as he could and intangibly hit Jack Fenton, flying through the body but forcing Vlad Plasmius out. Danny didn't let Plasmius have any time to recover from his tumble and threw as many ectoblasts at the ghost as he could.

"Ugh…" Danny heard his dad groan behind him, "G-ghost kid?"

"Get out of here, Da-dang it! I can't protect you and keep him off at the same time!" Danny called out behind him, continuing his assault on Plasmius, who had recovered enough to put up a shield.

"Crap," Danny muttered, turning around and grabbing a hold of his dad. The room had cleared out by then, leaving only Danny, Jack, and Plasmius in the ballroom. Danny quickly turned invisible and flew through the mansion.

As soon as Danny found Maddie and Harriet, who had run out to the RV, he set Jack off and left to draw Plasmius away.

He supposed that strategy worked, except for the fact that he'd been ambushed.

* * *

Vlad was _furious._ He was _beyond_ furious, he was _enraged._

"You thought your little trick with stashing Jack away in that monstrosity of an RV would _stop me?"_ Plasmius growled, pushing the younger halfa's face farther into the wall. He'd quickly entrapped Phantom, keeping his tangibility and forcing it on the boy so he couldn't become intangible. The little runt's hands and wrists were small enough for him to hold with one hand, so he kept them behind the boy's back within an uncomfortable position and held the boy's head forcefully against the wall of his dining room.

"No, just keep you away long enough for them to escape. By the way, are you the tenant the Dairy King talked about? He said you owe him two thousand vials of pure ectoplasm."

The boy had wit, Vlad would give him that. And stupid bravery.

"Playing messenger boy, are we? Maybe that's all you're good for," he snarled.

"Well, depending on the message, I suppose. I'd rather not send your love notes, what were you _doing_ with Dad and Harriet in that closet?"

Vlad winced as the memories came rushing back again. It hadn't been one of his _best_ ideas, but it would have worked if _Jack_ hadn't broken through enough to tell Maddie that a _ghost_ was behind his behavior.

"I mean, I get that Harriet's pretty, I guess, I mean, she's too old for me, but maybe you like her? But why try to get to her through _Dad?_ Why not use your human half?"

Vlad froze.

 _The boy was supposed to be dumb and idiotic like his father! How did he figure out my secret?!_

" _How do you know that?"_ Vlad hissed venomously, shifting Danny's arms even further. The boy let out a small cry of pain as he dislocated a shoulder.

"Well, I thought it was rather obvious, once you look at it," the younger halfa gasped. "Although, your human half was a bit harder to identify, as you're rather charismatic, aren't you?"

Vlad pushed the boy's face harder into the wall, eyes burning with fear and hate, although Danny couldn't see it. If he had been a normal human, he might have even fainted knowing that the boy knew.

"Charismatic _and_ a sadist! Jazz would _love_ to analyze _you_!" the boy's voice was muffled against the wall. "Don't you agree, _Vlad?"_

In a fit of anxious rage, Vlad pulled Danny's head back and slammed it back to the wall. The boy yelped at the sudden hit, and Vlad let go of him, confident that the it was hard enough to give the other halfa a concussion.

Danny fell to his knees, lightly touching his wound and staring oddly at the green ectoplasm he found on his gloved hand.

"Huh. My blood's green. Could have sworn it's supposed to be red…" the boy mumbled. He looked as if he were about to pass out.

"Ghost form, ghost blood, Little Badger," Vlad growled out, not even realizing the nickname had slipped out. Everything had gone _wrong._ How was he supposed to seduce and marry Maddie if Jack was still alive? The boy was a lost cause as well, considering he knew that Masters and Plasmius were the same. He'd tell Maddie, and then she'd _never_ marry him. "I suppose I'll have to kill you now."

"Why?" Danny giggled, waving his arms around madly, as if it was the only way he could keep balance, then mock-whispered, "Because I know your _secret identity?_ You're like, the most stereotypical villain, _ever."_ He thrust out his arm to the side at that statement and promptly fell on his side, continuing to giggle and laugh.

Vlad must have hit the boy harder than he'd thought, because this _child_ was acting _drunk._

 _Now's probably the best time to be rid of him._

Vlad turned his hand intangible and placed it within the boy's chest, searching for his ghost core. The boy giggled even more and began spluttering about how whatever Vlad was doing tickled.

As soon as he found the boy's core, he paused. If he broke the core, the boy would die. The only other person _like him_ would be gone, forever.

And Vlad found that he couldn't do that. Even though the boy hated him, Vlad knew he wouldn't kill the boy just over their _shared_ secret.

Something unfamiliar slithered into the older man's heart. It was… painful, and extremely melancholy. Was this _regret?_

Vlad's hand flew out of the boy's chest as if it had been burned. And it had. Vlad fascinatingly examined his glove that had somehow burned away while in contact with the younger halfa's ghost core. He hadn't even felt the core burn, in fact, it had been extremely cold, meaning it was different than Vlad's core, which simply pulsed the way his heart beat.

Vlad's core musings were interrupted by the Fenton RV driving _through the wall_ like a _tank._ It skidded to a stop, and there, facing him in the front seats, were Harriet, Jack, and _Maddie._ She held a microphone in her hand, her voice projecting from the car to him with a screech.

"Ghost! Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!"

Vlad could easily see Maddie's fury and knew not to mess with her, not at first, anyway. He moved slightly away from Phantom's curled body and slowly obeyed Maddie's order.

Seeing his compliance, Maddie climbed out of the car with a gun aimed at Vlad's head. She eyed Phantom beside him.

"What happened to your associate?"

"Mads," Jack called from the RV, "You know he helped us!"

Maddie sighed, then turned back to Vlad.

"What did you do to your fellow piece of ectoplasmic scum?"

Danny giggled.

"You said 'scum'. It rhymes with 'bum'. That's a British word for butt."

Vlad couldn't help but snort at how far Danny had gone down.

"I might have hit him too hard on the head." This was proven when Danny began saying other words that rhymed with "scum" and "bum", that will not be mentioned as some of the words are inappropriate for younger audiences.

"Hey, hey Vlad," Phantom gasped out, giggling the entire time, "you know that stuff the Dairy King makes you give him as rent for living here? Pure… ecto-whatsits? What would happen if you drink it?"

Vlad's hands dropped from behind his head as he stared in horror at the young boy beside him, putting his hands back up when he heard Maddie turning on her gun.

"Tell me you didn't drink any, Daniel," Vlad groaned.

"Ooops," Danny was completely unapologetic, "He said it was food, ghost food. It tasted funny."

"When did you drink it?" Vlad demanded. Maddie kept her eye on the two ghosts, fascinated with the way they were interacting (and fascinated with _them_ , as she was almost close enough to touch them) and what they speaking of. Pure ectoplasm was something that ectologists had only _theorized_ of before.

"Before you ambushed me?"

Vlad was horrified. Pure ectoplasm was toxic to humans. He'd tried a small dose once and ended up bedridden for days, seeing hallucinations of his parents, grandparents, and sister, who had all died years ago.

"Tell me, who do you see around you?" Vlad demanded the boy, who looked around and answered,

"You, Mo-Maddie Fenton, myself, and D-Jack Fenton in the Fenton RV over there with Harriet Chin."

 _Fascinating!_ Both Vlad and Maddie thought at the same time. Maddie, however, confident that the younger-looking ghost was no threat, forced Vlad's attention back to her.

"You will turn yourself in and allow us to put a tag on you before returning you to the Ghost Zone. You are in the world of the living, but belong to the world of the dead. You must go home."

Vlad sneered and bared his fangs at the woman before him, hissing out,

"I _am_ home!"

He then hit Maddie's hand hard enough to make her drop the gun she was holding, moving too fast for her eyes to see, and removed himself from the room, and mansion. Jack couldn't do anything to prevent the escape because his wife had gotten too close to the ghosts.

Shocked from her sudden disarmament and the ghost's escape, she turned to where the younger ghost had been on the floor only to find the space empty of the teenage ghost.

* * *

In the library where Vlad had first beaten up Danny, two halfas met, glaring at the other with hatred and, in Vlad's case, reluctant respect.

"I must congratulate you on figuring me out, Little Badger."

The boy had obviously recovered from the ectoplasm, because he snorted and folded his arms in clear defiance of Vlad's compliment.

"Please, the signs were obvious once they were put together, if you know what halfas are. But seriously, _Plasmius?"_

Vlad grunted at the boy, but didn't explain himself on why he chose Plasmius as his ghost name.

"So," the older man commented, "we are at a stalemate. I cannot kill you and continue my plots, but I cannot allow you to leave either."

"And I can't let you kill Dad, and I'm _not_ staying."

"I could simply force you, make you my prisoner."

"No you can't, Mom and Dad would wonder where I went and that's something that Vlad Masters doesn't want to explain."

Vlad smirked. "Nor does Danny Fenton, if I were to tell his mother that he drank pure ectoplasm without being bedridden for days. It's almost like he's more ghost than human."

Danny winced, as knew his mother's views on ghosts were still… not ideal. And he wasn't ready for anyone other than Sam and Tucker to know that he was half-ghost.

"If you tell anybody, I will tell Mom everything that you've done and she will _hate_ you," Danny growled.

"If you tell her, I will kill those you love, one at a time, and make it look like an accident," Vlad calmly answered back as he buffed his fingernails against his suit.

The two halfas glared at one another as they considered the impasse they were at.

"Fine," Danny snapped. "A truce, then. We'll keep each other's secret, and stay out of each other's hair. You will leave me, my family, and my friends alone, and I won't tell Mom what a _monster_ you are."

Vlad considered the deal. There were so many loopholes he could exploit, he couldn't wait to use them. For now, however…

"It's an acceptable truce. But, eventually, you _will_ accept and join me, you _and_ your mother."

He flew away from the youngest Fenton, before turning back and smirking at the young Phantom, saying one last jab before disappearing in a red mist,

"Until next time, _son."_


	36. Chapter 36

**Hi all! It's... It's been a while... I sincerely apologize. But hopefully I'm back for the summer! Yay! I'm almost done with this part of my education and will be able to move on from finances. It's not for me. At least I'll have a degree. Thanks for the comments from new people in April! I appreciate you liking this xD**

Jazz was _more_ than happy to be going home. This trip had gone from annoying to alright to bad to _crazy_ in the span of three days.

" _Ghosts,"_ she muttered to herself in the back of the rumbling RV. "Honestly, everyone's going absolutely _bonkers."_

"Sweetie," her mother tsked next to her, "there were multiple witnesses, not just myself and your father, who _saw_ them."

That brought her to another point.

"You're not mad at Dad? At _all?"_

"What's there to be mad about? He _and_ Harriet were being controlled by a _ghost."_

" _There's no such thing as ghosts, Mom!"_ Jazz angrily hissed at her mother. "Someone _must_ have spiked the punch. You were all _seeing things that aren't real!"_

"What makes you think the punch was spiked?" Maddie wondered.

"I asked around, and everyone that night _except for me_ had sampled the punch, and everyone _except for me_ claimed to have seen ghosts. _Most_ of your classmates only saw _Dad-"_ Jazz gestured wildly at her father, who was talking with Danny as he was driving the RV, "- _wreck_ the place! Did you even see _Danny_ in the aftermath?"

Maddie scrunched her nose and shook her head.

"He _definitely_ drank something that had been spiked! He was completely _delirious!_ He was _high, Mom!"_

"If what you're saying is what happened, don't you think it's a little odd that everyone hallucinated the _same thing?"_ Maddie knew how to speak with her daughter when she was like this, the only way to convince Jazz that she was _wrong_ about something was if she found enough holes in the logic used to create her argument. Maddie stowed away what Jazz had told her what had happened to Danny: she'd talk to Danny later and see what he thought had happened.

Jazz knew her mother did this. She did it often. Jazz, however, usually won out in the end anyway because Maddie had never before claimed to have actually _seen_ a ghost, and here she'd thought she'd seen _two._ And more importantly, _she believed she had witnesses._

"-can't believe that Harri lost her job."

Jazz couldn't help but butt in. This was a perfect opportunity to try to show how _crazy_ her family were becoming.

"Of _course_ she lost her job, she tried to publish a _crackpot story on_ _ **ghosts.**_ It's the _Milkwaukee Journal,_ not the _**National Enquirer.**_ " Jazz aimed a glare at her mother, who rolled her eyes and settled on her bunk. She turned to look at the back of Danny's head, her glare softening to concern. Despite his semi-upbeat attitude, Jazz saw his shoulders hunch and simply _knew_ what face Danny was pulling.

He'd had that face a lot more often lately. His eyebrows would scrunch together, not downward, but upward, and his eyes would glaze over… Jazz couldn't quite describe it. The closest emotion she'd ever gotten to describe it was 'melancholic determination'. His mouth would slightly purse forward as well, as if he was longing to speak. They'd always purse that way when he was about to correct someone.

Never in her life had she believed Danny to be unintelligent. None of the members of her family were _dumb,_ not her, not Maddie, not Danny, nor even her father, despite the town's popular opinion.

Jazz knew what their teachers were saying about Danny. _Disappointment_ , they'd say to each other, _a bad egg._

They compared him to _her._ She _hated_ it.

Because she knew that Danny knew it, too. It's a rather difficult thing to miss. She knew he'd gone through a phase in middle school where he'd distanced himself from her simply because she was his sister, and she'd been alright with it because during that same time _she'd_ been very _pushy_.

She'd kept her distance, given him his space, with the few exceptions where she needed to know _exactly_ what was going through his mind, but he _still_ stayed away.

She eyed the back of Danny's head again, mentally picturing his eyes. Her brother would probably never understand _how expressive_ his bright blue eyes were. His emotions were completely laid out, like an open book, within those vivid irises.

Jazz could never think of a moment where she could _not_ read what Danny was feeling.

She couldn't _believe_ her mother had just brushed off that Danny had been _drugged_. Danny had been _high,_ he was _high!_

 _Jazz had heard a commotion from the ballroom and decided to check it out. Probably some stupid drama leftover from college._

 _Her mouth dropped when she saw the destructed state of the room. Food was scattered everywhere, a table was lying upside-down on the floor, another was on its side, and the door that led to the mansion's gardens outside was swinging on its bottom hinge. She could hear frantic screams in the distance, slowly going farther away. Suddenly, the wall burst open and the RV, driven by her mother, skidded into the ballroom and then crashed through the door Jazz had just entered. The close proximity to the fast-moving vehicle (which caused a rather large burst of wind) nearly toppled Jazz to the ground._

 _Jazz remained frozen for a few minutes, recovering from nearly being towed over by her own_ _ **mother**_ _, when she shook herself out of her state and used the adrenaline to run to where her parents were headed._

 _She found the RV, lodged in a hallway, but her parents had gone elsewhere by the time she'd caught up to the RV. She'd have moved on in her search if she hadn't heard a hysterical giggle behind a door further down the hallway._

 _She hadn't expected to see Danny in that state. She never wanted to see Danny_ _ **in**_ _that state, and she_ _ **never**_ _wanted to see it again._

" _He-Hey Jazz," he giggled, collapsed against a wall inside what appeared to be a janitor's closet. Jazz had immediately taken in the wound on Danny's head, the bruises peeking out of his suit on his wrists, and the bruise on his face. His eyes, however, were what frightened Jazz the most. For the first time in her life, Danny's eyes were empty, without emotion. His eyes_ _ **always**_ _showed some form of emotion because Danny_ _ **always**_ _felt_ _ **something.**_

" _Did you know that- that Mom said 'scum'? Do you know what that rhymes with?" he leaned forward and whispered loudly, "It rhymes with 'butt'. Get it? 'Scum-butt'?"_

 _And he burst into more hysterical laughing, lifting his shaking hands to rub his face._

" _Danny?" Jazz asked. The boy laughed for a few more minutes before slowly lifting his head._

" _Oh, heeeeyyyyyy Jaaaaazzzzzz," he grinned slowly._

" _OK, something's definitely happened. Let's get you some help." She gently helped Danny get to his feet and mentally noted his imbalance and slow movements. "There's got to be a doctor_ _ **somewhere**_ _at this stupid reunion."_

 _Their movements were slow because Danny's knees kept toppling him to the ground or into Jazz. Jazz herself didn't think it a good idea to leave Danny by himself, so they stumbled through the mansion slowly, with Jazz calling for help every ten seconds or so._

 _It didn't matter, though, because half an hour after being found, Danny had started to come down from whatever high he'd been on._

" _Jazz? Can we sit down?"_

" _Sure," she answered. Danny had been leaning more heavily on her, and she couldn't support his weight for very much longer. "Do you remember what happened?"_

 _Danny paused, before looking away and mutter a quiet 'no'._

 _Jazz immediately knew that he was lying._

* * *

Something had happened while Danny was in Wisconsin. Sam could see it, clear as day, on Danny's face. He had that face he always pulled when he was overthinking something.

The girl eyed her best friend sitting next to her, slowly chewing his lunch brought from home. He'd hardly taken two bites, and lunch was nearly over. She glanced at Tucker who was sitting across them, tilting her head slightly towards Danny and lifting her eyebrows a little. Tucker moved his entire _head_ to look at Danny, then back to Sam, then back to Danny again, and asked,

"What, Sam?"

Danny (Sam shouldn't have been surprised) hadn't even heard him. She rolled her eyes at both boys, then flicked Danny on the nose.

"Ow!" Danny blinked at the small, but sharp pang she'd caused, then glared at Sam. " _What,_ Sam?!"

" _You,"_ she accused, pointing a finger at Danny, "are overthinking something. What on _earth_ happened over break to cause _that?"_

Danny's eyes flickered back and forth between Sam and Tucker.

"He missed my _birthday,_ that's what!" Tucker exclaimed. "How could your parents _do_ that to me?!"

"You know I tried to talk to them about it, but Dad wanted us all to go to Wisconsin for their _college reunion_."

"Ha!" Sam exclaimed, "So something _did_ happen! Spill, Danny, you're pulling your serious thinking face again."

"I-I was _not-"_

"You were," Tucker butted in, "Sam just noticed it before I did." He stuffed the rest of the bacon burger in his mouth. "Sphill, Dhannee."

" _Yuck!"_ Sam gagged, " _ **Tucker!**_ No one wants to _see that!"_

"Yeah, _Tuck,"_ Danny took a large bite from his sandwich. "No one whants te see dat."

" _ **Danny."**_

Danny and Tucker glanced at their best friend, who was _glowering_ at the two immature boys. With their mouths still full of half-chewed food, they grinned widely at each other. The girl shuddered at the disgusting display, suddenly remembering what they'd been talking about previously.

"You almost got me there, Danny," she groaned. "But you're _not_ weaseling out of this one."

Danny's back slouched when he realized the trick hadn't worked. As soon as he swallowed, he took another huge bite out of his sandwich and chewed as _slow_ as possible.

Sam's eyes narrowed.

"You know you're going to tell us about it sometime, Danny," she growled. Danny simply nodded and continued his slow chewing until after the lunch bell rang.

Danny was (incredibly) able to ignore Sam's glares, notes, subtle kicks and nagging for the rest of the school day. Once the final bell rang, the halfa's luck was up as Sam was finally able to ensnare the boy and drag him to the best place for an interrogation: The Nasty Burger.

"OK, Danny," she glowered as they sat at a table in a corner, far away from the other diners, " **spill.** "

Danny visibly gulped.

"Come on, dude, you know you can tell us," Tucker added. Danny's gaze fell to the table, but he nodded, then murmured something that neither Sam or Tucker could hear.

"You're going to have to be a little louder, buddy," Tucker commented, cleaning his ear with his pinky. Sam softened her glare, her annoyance at Danny slightly waning as she noticed how whatever was bothering him was affecting her best friend. Danny's cheeks turned a little pink, but he took a deep breath, then clearly said,

"I'm not the only Halfa."

Sam blinked, then blinked again.

 _How could there be another person out there like Danny?_

"You mean… another half-ghost… like you?" Tucker asked, scratching his scalp through his beret. Danny simply nodded. "Who is he?"

"My parents' old friend from college who held the reunion, Vlad Masters."

"Wait, Vlad _Masters?"_ Sam asked, astounded. She'd _met_ the guy, several times, at boring social events her parents used to drag her to. "How long has he been a Halfa?"

"Twenty years, apparently."

Sam couldn't believe it. Vlad Masters, one of the richest men in America, was _half-ghost._

"Well, that's great, isn't it? He could help you out with your powers!" Tucker exclaimed. He suddenly gasped. "Wait, there are TWO of you! I need to update the percentage of Halfas in the world!"

Danny and Sam stared helplessly at Tucker.

"Tuck, what are you _talking_ about?" Sam asked.

"Oooohhh, I have _got_ to show you this!" Tucker pulled out his PDA and started typing into it, then turned it around to show the screen to his friends. "See this number?"

Sam and Danny leaned closer to see the number '0.0000000153846153846154%' displayed.

"Tuck, what _is_ this?" Sam asked incredulously.

"This-" Tucker turned the PDA back to him and started typing in it again, "-is the percentage of the world's population that are classified as 'Halfa'. Until now!"

He turned the PDA back to his friends again, the number '0.0000000307692307692308%' replacing the previous one.

"So… you're saying…" Danny trailed off, waiting for Tucker to finish.

"I'm saying that point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero three percent of the population are classified as 'halfas', or 'half-ghosts'. I'm rounding up because it's a _really_ small number and the world's population is constantly increasing," Tucker smugly put his PDA away.

Danny merely groaned while Sam's mouth gaped open in awe of how nerdy Tucker really was.

"You know you could just say 'one in six and a half billion', right?" she wondered out loud.

" _Two_ in six and a half billion," Tucker corrected, "but what's the fun in that?"

The goth could only roll her eyes as she turned back to Danny.

"So Vlad Masters is half-ghost. That's not a bad thing, right? Did he tell you more about what being half-ghost entails?"

Danny bit his lip and averted his eyes from his two friends staring expectantly at him.

"He… uhhh…"

His hand began rubbing the back of his neck. With that simple action, Sam's hope that Danny was no longer alone as a half-ghost was suddenly crushed. She knew what Vlad Masters was like.

"He didn't like you, did he?"

Danny's head fervently whipped from side to side as he laughed nervously. His mouth seemed stuck in a firm grimace.

"You could say that."

And Danny launched into telling his best friends what had happened at his parents' college reunion.

They both gagged when they heard how Vlad was constantly hitting on Maddie Fenton. They were absolutely horrified when Danny told them how Vlad had beaten the crap out of him that first night.

They both turned a little green when Danny told them how Vlad had tried to make Maddie think that Jack was cheating.

"I think that was when I really realized that Vlad Plasmius and Vlad Masters were the same person. Mom stomped on Master's toe, and that gave Dad the chance to warn Mom about Plasmius."

"That's intense, man," Tucker muttered, taking a half-hearted bite of his mostly unfinished burger.

"What happened then?" Sam nudged Danny, prompting him to continue his tale.

"Well, Vlad wrecked the place with Dad's body, so I forced him out and got Dad out of there. But… I don't even know _why_ I did it, I guess I thought I'd get more energy or a burst of power, or _something_ …"

"What did you do?" Sam and Tucker both asked in tandem, before Sam's eyes shuttered closed and she muttered, "Please tell me you didn't."

"I sort of… drank the pure ectoplasm that the Dairy King gave me," Danny admitted sheepishly, his hand finding its way to the nape of his neck.

"How could you be so _stupid?!"_ and "What did it taste like?" resounded in Danny's ears at the same time. Sam stared at Tucker in disbelief.

" _Tucker!"_

"What? I was just curious!" he defended himself, turning towards Danny. "Seriously man, what did it taste like?"

"Uhhhhhhh-"

"Don't say it," Sam turned her attention to Danny again. "I don't want to hear it."

Danny's eyes moved back and forth between his best friends. Eventually, he said,

"I'll tell you later, Tuck. Anyway, things got weird after that."

"Of course it got weird, you consumed an unknown substance, how could it not go wrong?" Sam muttered darkly under her breath.

"Well, a few minutes after that Vlad ambushed me. It wasn't really until that moment that it really _clicked_ , you know? That Masters and Plasmius was the same person. So…"

"You taunted him, like you usually do with people that are stronger than you. What happened after that?" Tucker commented.

"Hey! I don't…" Danny thought about what he was about to say, then conceded to Tucker's point. "OK, I _do_ taunt people that are stronger than me, but Dash doesn't count anymore because I'm _technically_ stronger than him now."

"Yeah… _now_ ," Sam chuckled. Danny glared at his friends but continued the tale.

"I guess he freaked out or something because my last clear memory from that night was him bashing my head against the wall."

"He did _what?!"_ Both Sam and Tucker exclaimed.

"He hit my head really hard against the wall. I can't clearly remember what else happened before Jazz found me in human form. Apparently, she thought I was high or something."

"Like, high on _drugs?"_ Sam gasped.

"Yeah," Danny snorted. "She's convinced someone spiked the punch because everyone at the party claimed to have seen ghosts and everyone had sampled the punch."

"Wait, you're saying that she _still_ doesn't believe in ghosts?" Tucker guffawed.

"She's been denying that ghosts exist for years and she's _never_ been wrong before. She's not used to it," Sam explained.

"Yeah, on the trip back she used my 'high' as evidence that the punch was spiked and that everyone was hallucinating the ghost," Danny explained.

"Mass hallucination of the same thing… even _that's_ stretching it a bit," Tucker commented.

"It's not stretching it _a bit_ , it's stretching it _a lot._ Mass hallucinations aren't even a _thing_ in scientific communities. If Jazz is claiming _mass hallucination_ , then she's scraping at the bottom of the barrel for excuses that ghosts aren't real," Sam exclaimed.

"So that leaves one question unanswered…" Tucker said, rubbing his hands together conspiratorially, "What are you going to do about your archnemesis?"

Sam sighed.

"Tucker, how many times do I have to tell you we're _not_ in a comic book?"

"You shouldn't say it at all because we totally _are?_ " he retorted.

"I'm not arguing over this again. But he has a point, Danny, what are you going to do about Vlad?"

"Nothing, really," Danny answered. Techno-geek and Goth both found their jaws on the floor.

"And _why not?!"_ Sam screeched silently.

"We made a truce to not spill each other's secret and to leave each other alone," Danny replied. "We'll never hear from him again."

Sam stared at Danny incredulously.

"You know you just jinxed it."

"Darn it."


End file.
